ABSTRACT

This paper highlights formalism as a theory and estrangement and defamiliarisation which are
primarily employed to foreground literary text in a classical formalist perspective for
understanding and appreciation by readers. Victor Shklovsky, who is credited with the famous
formalist movement, along with Roman Jacobson and others emphasised literariness of texts,
instead of contents and author’s background. The paper reveals that the features of text, rather
than content takes credence in the analysis of text after taking a close reading of such text.
Christopher Okigbo uses pseudo images, such as elephant, thunder, pumpkins, town-crier, horn,
eagles, robbers, politicians etc in their aesthetic forms to illustrate not only the beauty of poetry
but create sensory impressions in the mind of readers at the same time creating awareness about
tyrants all over Africa. The paper also highlights literary elements in the texts studied and
concludes that the literariness of texts supersedes its contents, if only close reading is adopted.

Keywords: formalism, estrangement, defamiliarisation etc

INTRODUCTION
The term formalism was first coined in 1917 by Russian Formalist Victor Shklovsky in his essay
"Art as Device". Shklovsky invented the term as a means to "distinguish poetic forms from
practical language”. Essentially, it is a type of literary theory which originated in Moscow and
St. Petersburg in the second decade of the twentieth century, (Abrams, M. H. & Harpham, G. G.
2012). At the beginning, critics of Roman Formalism applied the term ”formalism” derogatory
due to its emphasis on the patterns and technical devices of literature to the exclusion of its
subject matter and social values, at a deeper level. Victor Shklovsky, Boris Eichenbaum, Roman
Jacobson were the leading representatives of the movement; until the early part of 1930 ’s when
the center of formalist study of literature moved to Czechoslovakia that saw the members of
Prague Linguistic Circle, such as Jan Mukarovsky, Rene Wellek joining the movement.

The formalists consider literature as a specialized use of language, and proposed fundamental
oppositions between the literary use of language and ordinary use of language. The formalist
literary language is self-focused and often times makes extrinsic references to offer the readers
special experience by making reference to its own “formal ” features. The language of formalism
differs from the language of practical discourse; as formalism is geared towards producing some
distinctive features, called literariness. The literariness of a text, as Mukarovsky puts it, is
displayed “in the maximum of foregrounding of the utterance”, and related basically to the act of
expression and speech itself. Here now lies the idea behind the adoption of Christopher Okigbo’s
Hurray for Thunder and Elegy for Alto which portrays distinctive features worthy of analysis as
formalist in nature. This is because to foreground means to bring something into prominence by
making it dominant in perception, just the way Okigbo presents the different exploitative
instances by making reference to imageries, depicting such exploitative situations. Another
literary text which depicts formalism is the Fate of a Cockroach by Abdel Hakim of Egypt which
unfolds the story of the oppressed by the tyrannical regime of Abdel Naseer where cockroaches
were foreshadowed defamiliarized to portray the actions and inactions of men, just as witnessed
in Hurray for Thunder and Elegy for Alto.

The Formalists adopted "estrangement or de-familiarisation" in the analysis of text for easier
“close reading”. Estrangement in this context is derived from Russian word "ostranenie",
meaning "making strange". The concept is central to Formalist criticism ever since Darko Suvin
defined the theory as creating the effect of "cognitive estrangement". It has to do with the
situation in which familiar things are rendered to become unfamiliar. Estrangement does not only
render familiar things strange, but also make the alien look ordinary. Estrangement mainly
happens when a marvelous element is introduced into an apparently realistic world.

However, the term de-familiarization is mostly used instead of estrangement. De-familiarization

is used in Formalist theory to refer to the artistic technique of presenting to audience common
things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar. De-
familiarization is that which is or has become familiar, automatically perceived, is the basic use
of literary language. Art and literature have the ability to make us see the world a new- to make
that which has become familiar, because we have been overexposed to it, strange again. Instead
of merely registering things in a conscious process of recognition based what we think and know,
the formalists look at issues differently, using pseudo images and situations to make meanings.

De-familiarization is used as a concept in Russian Formalism to emphasize the analysis of texts

through close readings, thereby rejecting the author's biography and highlighting instead the
literariness of the text. In the attempts to do that, they observed the following:

 Close reading takes centre stage in formalist viewpoint

 The literariness of a work of literature which makes it an aesthetic object lies entirely in
its devices, which should also form the sole object of literary studies.

 The form of the literary text itself should be the focus of study.

 That literature as a very specific unit of human knowledge has to be examined on its own
terms and for its own sake.

 De-familiarization which seeks to enhance the readers' perception of the text is important.

 Focus on form, organization, structure, word choice and multiple languages are
important.

Thus, it is in line with the above views that we are analyzing the poem "Hurray for Thunder" and
"Elegy for Alto". This is because doing that will give us the opportunity to look at the poem
objectively rather than subjectively because a text is not only what it seems to be talking about, it
is always something else. There is always something other than the literal meaning of it. And to
do that, it is important that we note these questions:

What kind of language is used to describe, narrate and explain in the literary work that is
different from the everyday usage of language?

Why plot, setting, themes, characters, imageries, metaphors, similes, motifs, allegory and
symbols, etc, are used in the poem to make it captivating to the readers and make them to want to
read it over and over again?

How do these literary devices add to the aesthetics of the poem vis-ὰ-vis the formalist theory?

Answering the above questions is similar to saying that estrangement otherwise known as de-
familiarization as a Russian Theory of Formalism achieves the purpose of making the familiar
unfamiliar. This is because the idea of literariness is easily embraced in terms of what
differentiates literature from non-literature. Therefore, the concept of estrangement can be better
understood when we look at it through the analysis of the poems, "Hurray for Thunder" and
"Elegy for Alto". This can be made possible by looking at the usage of language, plot, setting,
themes, characters, imageries, similes, motifs, metaphors, symbols, allegory, personification and
alliteration.
To start with, the poem “Hurray for Thunder” is presented below:

"Hurray for Thunder" by Christopher Okigbo

WHATEVER happened to the elephant---

Hurray for Thunder---

The elephant, tetrarch of the jungle:

With a wave of the land

He could pull four trees to the ground;

His four mortar legs pounded the earth:

Wherever they treaded,

The grass was forbidden to be there.

Alas! the elephant has fallen---

Hurray for thunder---

But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:

If they share the meat let them remember thunder.

The eye that looks down will surely see the nose;

The finger that fits should be used to pick the nose.

Today--for tomorrow, today becomes yesterday:

How many million promises can ever fill a basket...

If I don't learn to shut my mouth I will soon go to hell,

I, Okigbo, town-crier/ together with my iron bell.

The Plot:

The poem depicts a situation charged with possible crisis in a nation, society or any social group.
It posits the imminent fall and collapse of a political system of autocracy. Okigbo successfully
communicates this using two power images--- the elephant and thunder, and the consequences
this would have. The elephant is metaphorically referred to as the "tetrarch of the Jungle". This is
the image of power, of kingship. The elephant is, the king of the forest, a term capturing the
oppressive power of the ruling class. It also represents the rulers and the oppression it
perpetuates. Some of these rulers are the politicians whose promises are hyperbolically referred
to as "million promises" which amount to nothing, emptiness. We observe that this emptiness is
conveyed in the rhetorical question: "How many million promises can ever fill a basket?" The
question is an indication that empty promises are much like filling a basket with water. It puts
forward the image of deceit and betrayal and the nation of the persona has experienced in the
past years. With this situation going on unabated, crisis is, therefore, imminent and when it
comes, it will consume the entire country.

Using the proverbs, "the eye that looks down will see the nose"; "the finger that fits should be
used to pick the nose", the persona hints that the situation of approaching crisis would have been
avoidable had the rulers been shrewd and discrete in the discharge of the duties of their office.
But, in the same vein, he fears for himself for talking too much, alluding to the "town crier" and
"iron bell" being defamiliarized. The symbol of the village "town crier", a traditional means of
communicating messages across a clan or community, is what the persona liken himself to here
while iron-bell is another African object. It calls attention when used, but the African syncretic
churches of the period immediately after independence popularized its usage for evangelism and
prophesies. Using these allusions, he declares that his position of constructive criticism is
dangerous because in a crisis-ridden nation, group or society to which he belonged, there it is a
place where the rule of the strongest holds.

Some critics have argued that the poet was referring to Nigeria in the early years after
independence. But, the poem addresses a universal concern, which curiously refers beyond
Nigeria to any nation where greed, violence, poor leadership and crisis is rooted. This is very
much evident in Okigbo's other poem, "Elegy for Alto".

Setting:
This refers to both the time and geographic locale within which a narrative, either fiction or non-
fiction takes place. As a literary element, the setting helps to initiate the main backdrop and
mood for a story. The poem "Hurray for Thunder" takes place in Africa. The jungle is included
as a part of the setting which represents the flora and fauna. The time is present.

What makes the setting of the poem to be strange as a literary element is in the fact that instead
of the normal nation that the poet is expected to use, the jungle is used. This makes the reader to
go into the realm of imagination and so becomes estranged.

Themes:

Crisis: This is one of the prominent themes of the poem. The crisis is between the autocrats or
bourgeoisies and the lower class or the poor. In an attempt to estrange the poem, the poet uses
the "jungle" to represent a nation, the "Elephant" to represent the politicians or the autocrats, the
"hunters" to represent the lower class or the masses and Okigbo, himself to stand for the prophet
who predicts the fall of the autocrats. The fall of the elephant- "Alas! The elephant has fallen-"
depicts the overthrow of a government. The coming of the hunters "to share the meat" signifies
the celebration of the masses for the collapse of the corrupt government. When then does the
poet not just say that there is a corrupt government in a nation and when the government falls,
the masses celebrate? The simple answer to this very question is the fact that this is to achieve
the purpose of estrangement.

Greed: There is a theme of greed in the poem. There is a depiction of greed in "Hurray for
Thunder". In the poem, one sees how both the politicians and the masses are all greedy. The
politicians as represented by the elephant are greedy in the sense that, using their power and
might, they take over everything in the nation (jungle). As they do that, the masses complain.
However, as soon as the politicians fall, the masses also take over the plundering of the nation
forgetting that they were once clamoring and agitating for change because the politicians
symbolized by the elephant were greedy. This shows that greediness is an innate quality in
human irrespective of his or her position in the society.

CHARACTERS:

In a literature, characters refer to any person, animal or figure represented in a work of art.
Character as a literary element is used in the poem "Hurray for Thunder" to depict the literariness
of the poem. The characters used in the poem include the following:

Christopher Okigbo

Okigbo is the narrator of the poem, "Hurray for Thunder" in which he identifies himself as a
"town crier", thus:
"I, Okigbo, town-crier/ together with my iron bell" (line 18)

This means that Okigbo is a sort of prophet of local official who is responsible for guiding the
townspeople in times of crisis and to predict the future in certain ways. Tired of being ignored,
he expresses a desire to stop talking because nobody listens. He is afraid that his work is wasted
and that his words are falling on deafened ears.

The Elephant

In trying to de-familiarize the poem, Okigbo uses the Elephant as a character in the poem. Here,
he denotes some words to his praise of the Elephant, specifically. However, the Elephant in this
poem is not used as the animal we all know, but as a representative of politicians. Th Elephant
(politicians) later falls and the hunters (masses) jubilate.

"Alas! The elephant has fallen

...

But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:

If they share the meat let them remember thunder." (line 9-12)

Despite being the rulers of a nation, they have fallen. Worse still, soon they will be forgotten.

The Hunters

This refers to someone who preys on weaker beings. Hunters are used in the poem as characters
standing for the masses, thus:

"But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:" (line11)

This helps in making the concept of estrangement possible because the poem sounds strange
when the narrator says "But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:".

LITERARY DEVICES

Hyperbole

This has to do with extravagant exaggeration of fact or possibility. The literary device is depicted
in the poem, thus:

"... million promises..." (line 16)

In the above extract, the poet uses estrangement when he makes strange the world of everyday
perception in the exaggeration of the number of promises given by the politicians to the masses.

Rhetorical question

This refers to a question that does not demand an answer. In the poem, the poet uses rhetorical
question when he says:

"How many million promises can ever fill a basket?" (line 16).

Proverbs

A proverb is a short, pithy statement of widely accepted truth about everyday life. It is defined
by Chinua Achebe as "the palm oil with which words are eaten." In the poem, "Hurray for
Thunder", proverb as a device is used in order to render the familiar unfamiliar. This can be seen
in the poem, thus:

"The eye that looks down will surely see the nose" (line 13)

"the finger that fits should be used to pick the nose" (line 14)

Instead of the poet to use the above extract in the normal everyday use of language, he however,
de-familiarized it by making it to appear strange for the readers. This helps in sharpening the
intellectual faculty of the reader.

Allusion

This refers to a passing reference, without explicit identification, to a literary or historical person.
In the poem, the poet makes allusion to the traditional means of communicating message and the
object used by the African syncretistic churches of the period. This is portrayed as follows:

"I, Okigbo, town-crier/ together with my iron bell" (line 18).

Alliteration

This is the conspicuous repetition of identical initial consonant sounds in successive or closely
associated syllables within a group of words, even those spelled differently. We find alliteration
in the line, thus:

"If they share the meat let them remember thunder." / /

Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for the rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by
mentioning another. The "thunder" is one of the metaphors used in the poem "Hurray for
Thunder". The thunder is used in this context as a metaphor for the destructive power of
humankind. The use of metaphor is further depicted in line three of the poem where the persona
directly refers to elephant as "tetrarch of the jungle." Making the direct comparisons of things
that belong to different classes such as "The thunder" for "humans" and "tetrarch of the jungle"
for "The Elephant" makes the poem to be strange, hence estrangement.

Diction

This refers to the choice of words used by the poet to communicate to his readers. A mere look at
the above poem reveals that the poet uses words that are not usually used in everyday language.
This is to say that the language of the poem is difficult and heavily iconoclastic. Some of the
words used in the poem that make it appear strange include the following:

Hurray: Used to express joy

Mortar: A short gun for firing shells

Tetrarch: A subordinate ruler

Pounded: To beat on

Treaded: A form of walking gently

Forbidden: Something that is not allowed/ is banned

Town crier: A person whose job is to make public announcements

Hunter: Someone who preys on weaker beings

Thunder: Loud rumbling weather sound caused before lightning strikes

The above words are used in the poem to mean something else. For instance, instead of the usual
use of the word "hunter" to mean someone who preys on the weaker animals, it is used to mean
the people of a nation particularly the masses. The "Elephant" in the poem is not the animal that
we all know, but the politicians. The "jungle" stands for a nation, and so on. It is the use of
language in this manner that results to estrangement.

Protagonist and Antagonist

In the poem "Hurray for Thunder" the protagonist is the elephant while the antagonist(s) are the
Hunters.

Motif
In the poem "Hurray for Thunder", the narrator mentions the thunder many times and thus it
becomes a common motif in the poem. The thunder is used here as a metaphor and its repetition
highlights its importance in the poem.

Symbolism

The elephant is the strongest creature described in the poem "Hurray for Thunder". The elephant
is described in the poem as a true force e everyone has to be afraid of. Unfortunately, the
elephant is taken down by the thunder and he disappears from the place he inhabited his whole
life. The elephant is used in the poem as a symbol that stands for the politicians in a nation that
has been overthrown. Just like the elephant is taken down by the thunder, many politicians are
taken down by men.

"But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:"

The pumpkins is used in this regard not as a type of plant we know, but as a new government.
Thus, the pumpkins is used in this context as a symbol. By mentioning the pumpkins, the
narrator wants to transmit the idea that the people responsible for killing the animals
(overthrowing the government) on the land already planned ways to replace the empty positions.
The pumpkins is thus used here as a symbol for the new government replacing the old ones. The
narrator mentions how the hunters planned to plant pumpkins in the places where the elephant
once stood, thus:

"But already the hunters are talking about pumpkins:" (line 11)

In the poem, "Hurray for Thunder", the narrator mentions how grass should not grow in places
where the elephant walks. This implies that certain elements should not be found in various
places. The grass is used in the poem as a symbol that stands for the masses and thus through this
the narrator wants to transmit the idea of that the masses are not allowed in the places where
those politicians live.

In the past, a tetrarch was a person who was given the task of taking care and ruling a province
or a certain part of the country for the King. The "tetrarch" had a great power and influence over
the people in his region and thus he was respected by many. By calling the elephant a tetrarch,
the narrator wants to transmit the idea that the politicians have great influence over the nation
where they rule and that they are forces that should be respected and appreciated because they
are the Representatives of the people.

"Elegy for Alto" by Christopher Okigbo

AND THE HORN may now paw the air howling goodbye...

For the Eagles are now in sight:

Shadows in the horizon--

THE ROBBERS are here in black sudden steps of showers, of

caterpillars--

THE EAGLES have come again,

The eagles rain down on us--

POLITICIANS are back in giant hidden steps of howitzers, of

detonators--

THE EAGLES descend on us,

Bayonets and cannons--

THE ROBBERS descend on us to strip us of our laughter, of our

thunder--

THE EAGLES have chosen their game,

Taken our concubines--

POLITICIANS are here in this iron dance of mortars, of

generators--

THE EAGLES are suddenly there,

New stars of iron dawn;

So let the horn paw the air howling goodbye...

O mother mother Earth, unbind me; let this be

my last testament; let this be

The ram's hidden wish to the sword the sword's

secret prayer to the scabbard--

THE ROBBERS are back in the black hidden steps of detonators--

FOR BEYOND the blare of serene afternoons, beyond

the motorcades

Beyond the voices and days, the echoing highways; beyond

the latescence

Of our dissonant airs; through our curtained eyeballs,

through our shuttered sleep,

Onto our forgotten selves, onto our broken images;

beyond the barricades

Commandments edicts, beyond the iron tables,

beyond the elephant's

Legendary patience, beyond his inviolable bronze

bust; beyond our crumbling towers--

BEYOND the iron path careering along the same beeteb track--

THE GLIMPSE of a dream lies smoldering in a cave,

together with the mortally wounded birds.

Earth, unbind me; let me be the prodigal; let this be

the ram's ultimate prayer to the tether...

AN OLD STAR departs, leaves us here on the shore

Gazing heavenward for a new star approaching;

The new star appears, foreshadows its going

Before a going and coming that goes on forever...

The Plot:
This poem indicates three identities: The one preying on others; the one being preyed on and the
interceptor, who possibly dislikes the action of preying on others. The interceptor is, perhaps, on
the side of the weak. Around the two extremes of the strong and the weak are affiliated the
dominant imagery of the poem. The imagery is about greed that leads to violence and crisis. In
essence, therefore, "Elegy for Alto" also bears the same themes of greed and crisis just like
"Hurray for Thunder"

The two extremes of the strong and weak are affiliated in the dominant imagery of the poem
"Elegy for Alto". Such metaphors as "eagles", "caterpillars" and "robbers" all seem to qualify the
"politicians", thereby giving us a picture of their destructive, greedy and oppressive activities as
well as their are insatiable lots. The haste with which they arrive in the midst of their prey is
given in hyperbole thus "steps of showers", "giant hidden steps", "rain down on us".
Furthermore, their activities are qualified by such images of war and destruction such as
"bayonets and cannon", "thunder", "iron dance of mortars", "of generators", " iron dawn",
"howitzers" and "caterpillars". Interestingly, in "Hurray for Thunder", iron which served as a
means of communication is, in "Elegy for Alto" metaphorically standing for war, violence and
whatever that has got to do with lethal weapons.

Such possessions as the weak, "us" has: "laughter", representing peace, joy and contentment,
"thunder" which means power and "concubines", women with whom they were intimate, are
suddenly greedy, from "shadow in the horizon" through "sudden giant hidden steps of guns,
taken from them". Therefore, their coming draws the curtain for the beginning of a new era of
violence, war and destruction, "this iron dance". This dance refers to crisis in consequence of
greed and because the poet can no longer stand by talking, he feels he has go to do something
more than town-crying as we have on the other poem, "Hurray for Thunder". But, somewhere
there are some restraints. So, personification such as "mother Earth unbind me", the ram's hidden
wish for the sword, the sword's secret prayer for the scabbard", are used to seek an active
intervention, away from passive oral intervention the persona is engaging in. The poet launches
himself into the fray, where evil is perpetrated with the hope of halting it. Whether he succeeds
or not is not the issue and the poem does not tell. What matters is that there is a situation of crisis
and a beholder is courageous enough to make an attempt to rescue the situation.

Literary Device

Diction

The language of the poem is difficult and heavily iconoclastic. This can be seen though the use
of words such as "bayonets and cannons", "howitzers", "caterpillars", "iron dance of mortars"
etc, to create a war scenery. However, in the actual sense, they mean the tools used by the
politicians in maltreating the poor. These words make the poem to be difficult to understand
unlike the ones that use everyday language. Their understanding needs deep thinking as they are
connotatively implied.
Metaphor

This is a figure that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It is
the direct comparison between two things of different classes. In the poem "Elegy for Alto",
metaphor as a literary device is used for the purpose of estrangement, thus:

"Eagles", "caterpillars" and "robbers"

The words above are directly compared in the sense that they are used to mean the politicians
who are responsible for the suffering of the masses. This manner of using language makes the
language to be strange, thereby leading to estrangement.

Hyperbole

This refers to the extravagant exaggeration of facts or possibility. The poet makes the language
strange by exaggerations such as follows:

"...steps of showers..."

"...Giants hidden steps..."

"...rain down on us..."

From the above excerpts, one can clearly see how the poet uses exaggeration in order to estrange
the poem. We can also say that the poem creates a kind of exaggeration they as one reads it, one
continues to have heightened emotion about what might befall those that are attacked. This
makes one to continue reading the poem to the end. The poem is therefore, de-familiarized in the
sense that people's interest is once again brought back to something that they already knew
although in a way that it has never been said before.

Imageries

We find images like that of war and destruction in the poem: "bayonets", "cannons", "thunder",
"iron dance of mortars", "generators", "iron dawn", "howitzers", "caterpillars". These images are
used to represent the destructive nature of politicians.

Personification

This is a literary device that gives inanimate things or abstract ideas life or human qualities.
Personification is depicted in the poem as below:

"O mother mother Earth, unbind me"

"the ram's hidden wish for the sword,"

"the sword's secret prayer for the scabbard"

"Iron dance of mortars, of generators".

Repetition

Repetition as a literary device simply implies the recurring of same word (s), either within the
same line of a poem or elsewhere in the very poem. The literary device is used in the poem as
seen below: "The eagles", "beyond", "robbers", "politicians" etc.

The repetition of these words helps in bringing the sound effects of the poem.

Alliteration

This literary device is used o depict the repetition of the same consonant sound at the initial
position of a word in a line of a poem. This device is portrayed in the poem in the following
lines:

"...back in black hidden steps of detonators--" /b/ alliterated

"...sudden steps of showers" /s/ alliterated

"...hidden steps of howitzers..." /h/ alliterated.

CONCLUSION

It is evident that from the concept of estrangement also known as de-familiarization explained
above in vividness, we can say that the language of everyday usage has been made strange in
Okigbo's poems, "Hurray for Thunder" and "Elegy for Alto". This is made possible through the
use of plot, setting, themes, characters, protagonist and antagonist, imageries, similes, metaphors,
motifs, symbols, alliteration, personification, repetition, among others. These devices are used in
the poem in order to make the known become unknown. That is why these poems are estranged,
hence estrangement. As earlier mentioned, it is important to know how the literary devices add to
the aesthetics of the poems. Aesthetics, in literature, is the inclusion of references to artistic
elements or expressions within a textual work. It is a method used in promoting or educating
readers about important artistic expressions in the society. In these poems, through the use of
praise words such as "hurray" in "Hurray for Thunder" and high sounding words such as
"howitzers", "caterpillars", "bayonets and cannons", etc, in "Elegy for Alto", one is left with no
option than to marvel at the sounds of the words. This is the part of the beauty we are talking
about!

WORKS CITED
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Christopher Okigbo, Hurray for Thunder, extracted on 10 th May, 2021 from:

www.poemhunter.com/poem/christopher_okigbo

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