Classical Temper and Creative Ingenuity in Osofisan’s Tegonni: An African Antigone

Omolara Kikelomo Owoeye

doi:10.12681/syn.17434

Abstract

This essay closely reads Osofisan‘s Tegonni: An African Antigone in the light of its classical antecedent and critically examines the playwright‘s deconstruction of Sophocles‘s Antigone as manifested in the thematic preoccupation, style, linguistic mediums and mythical contents of Tegonni. Through an exploration of the play, the feminist, Marxist and postcolonial agenda of the author is discussed together with his emphasis on local history and oral tradition. In spite of the author‘s recourse to colonial history and other local literary and non-literary materials, this essay argues that the play is still analogous to the classical play as both plays are affiliated in terms of plot, characterisation and ending. The essay ends with the proposition that Osofisan questions existing political and aesthetic structures and traditions, by demystifying supernatural claims on human existence and promoting a radical ideology based on the Marxist convictions of equity and egalitarianism while standing on the Hellenist platform.

Highlights

At the nascent stage of the development of drama on the African continent, internal and foreign influences on the writers and their works have been noticeable
The essay ends with the proposition that Osofisan questions existing political and aesthetic structures and traditions, by demystifying supernatural claims on human existence and promoting a radical ideology based on the Marxist convictions of equity and egalitarianism while standing on the Hellenist platform
Established on an ideological base that is nearly inexhaustible in its continual treatment of issues of politics, society, egalitarianism, gender, class and race relations, the play keeps expanding upon each critical assessment of its thematic and aesthetic contents

Summary

Introduction

At the nascent stage of the development of drama on the African continent, internal and foreign influences on the writers and their works have been noticeable. An adaptation of Sophocles‘s Antigone, Tegonn: An African Antigone is the story of the Princess of Oke-Osun who defies custom and goes into bronze casting, thereby incurring the wrath of her people This professional leap leads to the loss of her fiancée and she is unable to get a suitor from her people; yet later she falls in love with Allan, the British District Officer who rescues her from what would have been the consequences of committing a taboo by venturing into a career that is the exclusive preserve of men. Osofisan has raised the same issue albeit differently in an earlier play, No More the Wasted Breed, in which the various deities and cults worshipped by the people are at the receiving end of his critical butt. African with no single thematic pointer to its European tradition except for the presence of the mythical Antigone among the characters and the authorial acknowledgment that the play is an adaptation

African Oral Tradition in Tegonni

Postcolonialism in Tegonni

Race and gender in Tegonni

Conclusion

Works Cited