An Ecostylistic Scrutiny of human excessive extractivism, phases of the ailing earth, and demand for eco-consciousness and sustainability in Osundare’s Green: Sighs of our ailing planet
Bimbola Idowu-Faith, PhD
English Programme
Bowen University, Iwo, Nigeria
faith.idowu@bowen.edu.ng
Inumidun Adebayo
English Programme
Bowen University, Iwo, Nigeria
iadebayo2025@gmail.com
Abstract
Niyi Osundare’s Green: Sighs of our ailing planet (2021), the selected collection for this study, is constructed within the poet-scholar’s belief in art’s transformative capabilities. In spite of the pungency depiction of humans’ excessive ecocidal extractivism as the underlining factor of various environmental crises across the world, the volume has not received critical responses in the literature. This ecostylistic study fills the vacuum by using stylistics toolbox and insights from Systemic Functional Grammar to investigate the representation of environmental crises, victims of humans’ anthropogenic activities, and demand for eco-consciousness from humans. Findings reveal that the poet uses repetition, unusual space management, value-laden words, and the subjectivity of the nonhuman components of nature, amongst others stylistic strategies are deployed by the poet to drive home his point that the Earth is ailing and needs urgent healing from its ailment to make it supportive to all life forms within the ecosphere.
Keywords: Ecological crisis, environmental literature, ecopoetry, ecostylistics, eco-consciousness