Ethical Vulgarism

Okot p¿Bitek¿s poems cannot be fully appreciated without a close examination of his apparent vulgar language, and yet there is no sustained study available in this area. He once wrote that his works are ¿ammunitions for one big battle: the battle to decide where we here in Africa are going and what kind of society we are building¿. However, this moral commitment seems undermined by the use of apparent vulgar language. Some cursory readers have condemned his use of language as vulgar. This book, therefore, offers a scholarly study on Okot p¿Bitek employment of explicitly vulgar language as shock language to remind society to stop taking things for granted. References have been made to his three poems very much cited by critics: Song of Lawino, Song of Prisoner and Song of Malaya. Detailed analysis on the use of explicitly vulgar language in these poems have been treated as a defamiliarisation tool used for ethical purposes. This critical study is handy for all readers of Okot p'Bitek's poems.