Novel & Novella

 

 Novel

A Novel is a long fictive work (prose) peopled by imaginative
characters and events, and events are artistically presented as if

The Short Story & Fable _ Prose, Fictive Category

Short Story is a small continent of the Novel. The novel normally have
many characters but a short story has a few characters whose actions
centers arround a single event and would still enjoy a sense of
completeness. E.g. Ngugi's 'The Return' in his short story collection,
Secret Lives (1975).

Fable
It is a narrative which posses the twin attribute of straight and
surface meaning (denotation) and deeper and metaphorical meaning
(conotation). It points out moral truth in a civilized manner.
Characters in Fable are usually Animals which are meant to talk and
dialogue among themselves as if they were human beings. E.g. Animal
Farm by George Orwell (1945).

Synedoche, Metonymy

 

Synedoche

this is when a part is used to represent a whole. E.g The gray hair
are respected in Africa.( grey hair represents or stands for old
people).

Alliteration, Assonance

 

Alliteration

this is the initial repetition of consonant sounds at in a sentence or
phrase. E.g Peter Piper Pick a Pepper

Antonomasia, Epigram

 

Antonomasia

This is a type of Synedoche that puts an individual for a class. E.g.
A Solomon has come to judgement. A Samuel was born.

THE TEMPEST_ PLAY

 

 

ACT I

SCENE I. On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise

of thunder and lightning heard.
Enter a Master and a Boatswain

Master

Boatswain!

Boatswain

Here, master: what cheer?

Master

Good, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely,
or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.
Exit
Enter Mariners

Boatswain

Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!
yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the
master's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind,
if room enough!
Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others

ALONSO

Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master?
Play the men.

Boatswain

I pray now, keep below.

ANTONIO

Where is the master, boatswain?

Boatswain

Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your
cabins: you do assist the storm.

GONZALO

Nay, good, be patient.

Boatswain

When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers
for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.

GONZALO

Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boatswain

None that I more love than myself. You are a
counsellor; if you can command these elements to
silence, and work the peace of the present, we will
not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you
cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make
yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of
the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out
of our way, I say.
Exit

GONZALO

I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he
hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his
hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,
for our own doth little advantage. If he be not
born to be hanged, our case is miserable.
Exeunt
Re-enter Boatswain

Boatswain

Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring
her to try with main-course.
A cry within
A plague upon this howling! they are louder than
the weather or our office.
Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO

Myopia by Syl Chene Coker

MYOPIA

 Syl Chene Coker

On the rainy mornings
you will see them drenched
PEASANTS! shivering in their emaciated bones
along the boulevard of misery
the boulevard of this country
are railway trucks in my heart
a train of anguish run on them

HardLines_ Gemisola Adeoti

 Gbemisola Adeoti

Some lines are bitter pills
hard to swallow with laughter
like a tongue licking a weeping sore
to douse embers of thirst
Some lines are moistened rock
hard on the tongue
like a breakfast of toad
spiced with roasted cockroaches
Washed down with stale wine
Mixed with mucus and urine
Will a beauty bathe in mustard gas
Cook with sodium cyanide
When heaven holds it tears
And rivulets run dry?
Scream she will,across the stream
Tightly hugging the air in anguish
In our napping homeland
Truth is hard on the palate
As lion’s fiery tales turn fairy tales
In sporting grips of goats
While elergies are sung with glee
Heralding birth and christening
Bones spring in eggs,horns on chicks
Hooves on ducks,feathers on foxed
Dusty buttocks are decked in caps
Seized from harried heads of the honest
Who stirred the hornet’s nest
For leveling the house of deceit…..
Just like “Ambassadors Of Poverty”,Hard Lines is a poem of truth,a poem that brings out the problems of our society. Just like the poem reflects,no matter how much we want to sugar coat the truth it is still a bitter pill to swallow. Hard lines means “The Bitter Truth”,no matter how much we want to avoid It,nobody wants to hear the truth,it is easier to accept the lies because lies are interesting to hear. This poem also reflects how “the cap” has been taken from the honest ones and given to those who does not deserve it. Our society is a society where lies and corruption is the order of the day and when the honest ones decide to come out and unravel the deceit of those dishonest ones what happens??? It’s either they are found dead or incapacitated…I then ask myself where are those who claim to fight for justice,why can’t they do anything the answer is because they’ve been bought…Our will is no longer strong,we are easily bought by the lies and material things…
In short our society is one where lies and deceit has grown so deep it’s hard for the truth to prevail…Now why don’t we ask ourselves this: If things were to be different and I am given the choice to choose,would I choose the bitter truth that will put my conscience at peace or would I choose the lies and deceit that would make my conscience keep asking and judging me? This question is to those of us who have conscience and would like to see our society change for the better…

Source: adamsy2013.wordpress.com

The Sun Rising_ Johnn Donne

JOHN DONNE

 

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
        Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
        Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
        Late schoolboys and sour 'prentices,
    Go tell court huntsmen that the King will ride,
    Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

        Thy beams, so reverend and strong
        Why shoulds't thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
        If her eyes have not blinded thine,
        Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
    Whether both th'Indias of spice and mine
    Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me?
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, 'All here in one bed lay.'

        She's all states, and all princes, I;
        Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
        Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
        In that the world's contracted thus;
    Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
    To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here, to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

About The Poem

Almost 30 years before John Donne's birth in 1572, Copernicus had published his revolutionary theory of a heliocentric universe. Although it made little impact at the time, later on, when Galileo was basing his own astronomical research on the work of his predecessor, the theory scandalised the Church of Rome. In 1616, heliocentrism was officially pronounced "false and contrary to scripture".
Donne must have been well aware of these developments when he wrote "The Sun Rising", this week's poem. Perhaps they are even reflected in that little unexpected epithet, "unruly" – suggesting the sun himself had challenged the Roman inquisition. The unimpressed invocation, "Busy old fool, unruly Sun", sets the scene for Donne's own lyrical revisionism. While plenty of other poets before him had ranked the sun secondary to their mistresses' eyes, Donne is far more original. He creates his own erotic cosmology, and

Boy on a swing- Oswald Mtshali_ Poem

Oswald Mtshali's

BOY ON A SWING

Slowly he moves

to and fro, to and fro,

then faster and faster

he swishes up and down.

His blue shirt

The fence

Lenrie Peters

THE FENCE

There where the dim past and future mingle

their nebulous hopes and aspirations

there I lie.

There where truth and untruth struggle

in endless and bloody combat,

there I lie.

There where time moves forwards and backwards

with not one moment's pause for sighing,

there I lie.

There where the body ages relentlessly

Expelled- Jared Angira_ Poem

Jared Angira

 

EXPELLED

We had traded in the market competitively perfect

till you came in the boat, and polished goodwill

approval from high order

all pepper differentials, denied flag-bearers

and cut our ribs, dried our cows

the vaccine from the lake

burst the cowshed, the drought you brought

planted on the market place, the tree of memory

Figures of speech- Hyperbole, Anaphora, Transferred Epithet

 

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is an exaggeration or overstatement in an expression or
piece of art. e.g I would not leave my wife in a million years. Her
head flew off to the sky when she saw me.

Anaphora

Anaphora is a kind of rhetorical repetition of a word or a phrase at
the end of successive lines and sentences. e.g Be him my foe, Be him a
gentile.

Figures of speech- Onomatopoeia, Euphemism, Sarcasm

 

Onomatopoeia

This is a device in which the sound suggests the meaning of words or
expressions, because the words are formed by imitating the actual
sounds associated with the thing concerned. e.g The car zoomed off.
Tick tack says the clock.

Euphemism

Euphemism is a figure of speech in which harsh and unpleasant events
are presented in a pleasant or lighter way. e.g The old woman has
kicked the bucket. Kicking bucket is a pleasant way of saying someone
is dead.

Figure of speech- Metaphor, Oxymoron, Peripety, Innuendo

 

 METAPHOR

A metaphor canvasses the similarity between two things by insisting
that one thing is another. E.g The world is a stage.
Note: Metaphor is a direct comparison unlike simile which is indirect.

OXYMORON

This is a special kind of paradox. It places two opposite terms or
words together in an expression to reflect a mixture of attitudes
towards an event. E.g It was a sweet bitter experience. It has become
an open secret that Nwosu is gone.

Caricature,Personification

CARICATURE

This is when someone`s characteristics is being exaggerated.
e.g His ear is a giant baking pan.