International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Mood, Interpersonaland Ideological Meaning Patterns in the ‘Abiku’ Poems (J. P. Clark, W. Soyinka)
Yémalo C. AMOUSSOU

Abstract
This paper analyses the mood and modality patterns in two poems with the same title by two Nigerian writers, John Pepper Clark (1965) and Wole Soyinka (1965). The analysis reveals that, despite their monologic organization, the two poems appear as a dialogue between a parent-poet (Clark) and a rebellious child-poet (Soyinka). In particular, the mood and modality choices show some kind of power and hierarchy conflict between the parent and the child who considers himself as older than his parents. This leads to some idea of a-temporality regarding the Abiku-child, which is confirmed by the analysis of tense-selection in the poems.

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