World and woe : a sociological reading of proverbs as an enduring therapy among the Yorubas

Abstract

Man, who inhabits the world of the living, has put in place various measures to guarantee a rewarding, stable, virile and blissful existence even as he interacts with the other elements that characterize his being. In spite of the conscious, concerted efforts man makes, unfolding realities portend, often times, various levels of negativity in form of failure, disappointment, diseases, death, and other life-taking devices. As a result, man has also devised different methods of depilator and consolation. One of these is the philosophic deployment of proverbs to either play-down a highly horrific situation or take a walk out of it. The emphasis in this paper is how proverbs are used in the Yoruba socio-cultural societies to therapeutically achieve stability, in all spheres, in a woe-ridden world, using relevant indexes. The investigation done in this paper is predicated on the sociological school of criticism which sees literature as a reflection of the society. However, submissions made in this paper could smack of those obtainable in other cultures.