Positive Expression of Negative Attributes: An Aspect of Yoruba Court Poetry

There are official royal bards at the courts of prominent African paramount rulers who sing in praise of these monarchs. Although it is the exaltation of the kings that dominates the bards' production, there are also traces of criticism of the monarchs' unpopular policies and high-handedness. Such critical comments, however, are not easily identifiable because they are often presented in figuratively dense language. Using the court bards in the palace of the Aláàfin of Òyó, a prominent Yorùbá ruler, as a case study, this paper explains how the bards employ poetic skills and diplomacy in discharging this difficult responsibility. It is my claim in this paper that the production of Yorùbá royal bards must be correctly interpreted before it can be meaningfully related to events in the society. While it is true that the material of the poetry might have been taken from common daily occurrences, it has to undergo some form of aesthetic adornment to become poetry. The purpose of this paper is to unmask the bards' tactics of criticizing their patrons.