Eco-conflict in Niyi Osundare’s Horses of Memory: An Interface between the Natural and the Built Environments
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In our exploration of eco-conflict between the natural and the built environments,
we examined Niyi Osundare‟s the “road crosses the river” metaphor in order to examine how
the poems represent the social and aesthetic values of the natural and built environments. We
analyze poems adopted from poem “XV” in “The Dream, the Dream is a Moon,” in
Moonsongs; “Forest Echoes”, “The Rocks Rose to Meet Me” and “Harvestcall” in The Eye
of the Earth. We adopt a contextual analysis approach of “Memory‟s Road” (II.90-163) in
Horses of Memory and subject same to content analyses. The study applies the eco-critical
theory. Our findings show that man‟s handling of the environment is determined and limited
to his knowledge of nature and his worldviews. However, there are those who are conscious
of the danger of environmental degradation, but are constrained by economic, political and
social considerations. While nature can do without human culture and structural beauty, the
human society depends solely on the delicate balance of the eco-system for his survival. The
social and aesthetic implications of eco-conflicts are thus succinctly constructed through the
literary dynamics of eco-poetics
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General)