A Stylistic Appraisal of Selected Poems in Sola Babatunde’s The Valley Of Vision

Abstract:

Creative writers, poets, novelists and playwrights deploy linguistic forms that characterise literariness. More specifically, the peculiarity of language use in the poetic genre proves its suitability for stylistic appraisal. We analyse selected poems in Sola Babatunde’s The Valley of Vision from a stylistic point of view to examine how the sociocultural standpoint of the poet is reflected in the poems. Six poems were selected purposively from the poetic collection and analysed using the conceptual bases of rhetoric and lexico-semantic variation. From the data analysis, it was found that elements such as figures of speech, analogy, transfer, idiom and loan words are employed in the text to unveil the linguistic background of the poet, unveil the thematic preoccupation of the poem, stir readers’ emotion and create mental images in the minds of the readers. In conclusion, the use of stylistics as the conceptual basis for the study has revealed the reasons behind the choices made by the poet to attract readers’ attention by making his poems accessible. The use of the tools of rhetoric and lexico-semantics has also revealed some facts about African poetry to facilitate readers’ sense of interpretation.