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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:On the structure of Aro
Author:Awobuluyi, Oladele
Year:1971
Periodical:African Notes: Bulletin of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan
Volume:7
Issue:1
Pages:59-69
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subject:Yoruba language
Abstract:Aro, 'a minor genre of Yoruba spoken art', is performed by children and adults alike purely for entertainment, mostly in the evening at moonlight games, at times of bereavement, and at any other time when the need arises to cheer people up. Three types of Aro have been recognised: the versified wordplay type, the chain-reaction folktale type in segmented prose, the tall story type in ordinary prose (this third type is not considered here). Aro is in a class by itself among Yoruba poetic genres because of its very definite and completely a regular form. It would seem that this form is in part the raison d'être of the genre, but this is not to say that the lexical schemes found in Aro poems are the only interesting things about them or that such schemes explain everything about the poems. For a full understanding of the poems, it will be necessary to study their textual incidence, their semantic and cultural content, their sociological context, and, above all, any connection between their lexical schemes and those of Yoruba art in general. Notes.
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