Aesthetics In Language: Foundation For Literary Creativity

Sapientia Global Journal of Arts, Humanities and Development Studies (SGOJAHDS), Vol.7 No.2

Abstract

This research attempted to find out how aesthetics in language could enhance literary creativity. The major and specific aim was to examine the methodology or the style a literary artist has adopted in any of the three genres of literature to produce interesting
prose, drama or poetry. The theoretical framework adopted in this research was descriptive linguistics. The methodology consisted in analysing some corpora of eight literary works in the three genres of literature. These were: “ I wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth (poetry); “Peace Talks” in Eclipse in Rwanda by Joe Ushie (poetry); Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (play); “Morountodun” in Morountodun and Other Plays by Femi Osofisan (play); The Major of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (prose); Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (prose); So Long A Letter by MariamaBâ (prose); and The Voice of Man by Usoro Mark Okono (prose)
The analysis was focused on sentence, clause, group/phrase, word, and morpheme. Other areas included phonology i.e. alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, semantics, imagery and presentation techniques. I found out that these literary artists were very intentional in writing beautiful and flowery language that has made their work very creative. I have concluded that all literary artists studied have shown real creativity in the use of language through consciously and unconsciously minding the beauty of language in their writings. I have recommended that any person desiring to be a creative writer should emulate the styles of successful writers and be very intentional about the beauty of the language in which they write.