Water Imagery and The Content of J. P. Clark-Bekederemo's Song of A Goat

Abstract

Imagery's centrality to the literary artist's creative enterprise has always been emphasized by critics and literary theorists alike. Scholars have observed that literature as an art has its root and effectiveness in the imaginative capability of its creators. Thus, when we praise a literary work as good, we are invariably alluding to the effectiveness and beauty of its network of images. However, every writer has his own peculiar stock of imagery developed either by the peculiarity of his experience or by mere fancy; and each time he crafts a literary work, these images come into play. For J. P. Clark-Bekederemo, water imagery is an instance of such peculiar stock, which is obviously attributable to his experience in water affairs as a home-grown Ijaw man. Just as it is with all ingenious handlers of imagery, water imagery in the hands of Clark- Bekederemo is always skilfully deployed to the development of the component parts of his literary works. This essay, therefore, tries to examine how the author deploys water imagery to the exploration of the content of his first play, Song of a Goat.