An investigation of aesthetic strategies employed by Gusii oral narrators in Gusii oral narratives

Abstract

Oral performers have not been accorded attention that is due to them. This may be an attribute of a prevalent tendency to culturally and ethnically situate oral literature research. In this study we make an effort to use both the ethnocentric approach and the narrator centred approach in order to shed light on the extent to which the social circumstances and experiences influence the narrator's performance. The study is premised on the assumption that there exists a link between the narrators' worldview and their presentations. Equally, that the audience's reactions are pegged on the performance techniques employed by the performer. The questions that motivate the study include: to what extent can aesthetic strategies be said to be deliberate? Is there a correlation between individual narrator's disposition and aesthetic strategies employed? Finally, how do the strategies employed influence the audience's appreciation of the concerns? With these questions in mind, we then set out to show the link between the narrator's own world-view and artistic choices, as well as show how the artist's treatment of narrative events affects the audience's perceptions. To achieve these objectives we closely analyse performances by ten Gusii performers of Gusii fictional narratives guided by the canons in the theories of structural-semiotics and narratology. The data was also examined within the framework provided in the studies in oral literature that have placed the individual narrator at the centre of analysis. Among other findings, we note that the narrator's experiences are pivotal in the manner in which episodes are represented in a performance. Similarly, aesthetic strategies employed by the narrator are aimed at arousing sensations intuitively shared by both narrator and audience. The findings of this study would further the efforts being made by scholars of oral literature to strengthen tools of analysis that are not dictated by analytical templates of written literature. Indeed, in this study we demonstrate that individualised study of oral narrators is not only viable but analytically very resourceful.