Described as “probably the most comprehensive study of African dirge poems by a Nigerian scholar,” Gloria Monica Emezue submits
a theory of African dirge poetry which draws from constant recurring points in that genre of writing. Borne from her conviction that nowhere else in the corpus of oral poetry have there been more works of heightened creative expressions than in dirge poetry, she explores, in this seminal work, the world of various categories of African mourners. They are conjurers of images and weavers of emotions interpreting the human tragic sensitivity with such admirable craftsmanship as can only be known to those gifted bards of all ages and their modern descendants across the continent.Divided into seven chapters, the book traces the different dirge compositions and dirge sentiments in Africa. These include the oral, written and those of English expressions. A historical overview of African traditions corroborates the idea that despite the geographical expanse of the African continent, most of its cultural traditions is essentially uniform. This therefore informs the author’s particularisation of this study on the southern belt of Nigeria and a few other poetry of sub-Saharan Africa as representative of the dirge tradition in Africa. Generally, any event of death gives rise to the
composition of dirges and their oral renditions. The occasion is always burial, memorial or funeral ceremonies. Two major categories of traditional African dirges have been identified: the solo
individual dirges which are often composed for particular persons. The other category is the popular or choral dirges which can be adapted to any burial situation. Whereas the popular is always short, light hearted and communal in both ownership and presentation, the other is dense, sombre, and highly amenable to individual artistry. Other dirges written both in Igbo and English languages exhibit characteristics of either of these two categories of traditional dirges. The difference therefore lies, not in the process of transmission as such, nor the language of rendition, but the variables of composition by individual poet artistes. The author posits that the employment of African dirge styles in modern poetry of Africa will be appreciated more fully when critics begin to look deeper into the new poetry from Africa. Their threnody of the poetry and their sombre elegiac tones reveal a quality of modern African art which is at once distanced from contrivance of art (domestication) and yet environmentally honed to the communal landscape. A study of this departure is necessary to elicit the various nuances in style of presentation and uniqueness of form.Finally, the author propounds a theory for the African dirge which situates the mourner in the middle of the dirge sentiment, and who explores all the negative and positive sentiments in the process of composition and rendition. Death and all agents of distraction are villains, while the deceased, the mourner, and his hoard of sympathisers are the victims/heroes. The African dirge mood also varies from that of Positive (elation, triumph, laughter, etc) to Negative (despair, frustration, anger, loss etc). At other times, the bard transcends the terrestrial universe to that of the abode of the ancestors where he communicates directly with the deceased. These form the artistic corollaries of African dirge poetry as distinct from Western poetry which GMT Emezue argues is primarily individualistic and seeks often to preserve the identity of the deceased in epitaphs. The African dirge however seeks to perpetuate the continuity of life beyond the natural mortality of the flesh. All loss is never total, for, as the African animist tradition goes, there is always the undying hope of another rebirth.