THE LANGUAGE OF K.E. NTSANE'S POETRY

Abstract

Ntsane, like his contemporaries, has written poetry which is a combination of praise poems and lyrics. The focus in this paper is on the language of Ntsane's poetry. According to the structure, the poems are divided into three types: praise poem-like poems, rhyme poems and free verse poems. The use of praise poem devices abound in Ntsane's poetry, e.g. eulogues, metaphors, similes, personification, overstatement, etc. Ntsane is also a master in the use of satire of a light-hearted nature. Ntsane achieves emphasis in a number of ways, but the most prevalent ones are repetition which is vertical, horizontal, oblique-line with right-to-left slant.