Transnationalism and the Creative Imagination: A Comparative Study of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Esiaba Irobi’s Sycorax

Abstract

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, African literature has witnessed a significant shift from its attention from peculiar national cultures, discrete experiences and traditional practices to more global paradigms. The global or transnational approach to literary studies weakens the writers’ roles as committed vanguards of their indigenous cultures and reconfigures their works to accommodate exponential global issues and postmodern characters. Due to the newness of this transnational turn in African literary enterprise, scholars still grapple with its tenets and application. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to engage archetypal, borderless or transnational plays in the demonstration of the methods some postcolonial writers have applied in the demolition of geographical and historical boundaries especially via appropriations. Its significance lies in its ability to open up new perspectives to the study of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Irobi’s Sycorax which will aid the understanding of the features of globalization in African literature. The paper is qualitative in approach and is based on Homi Bhabha’s strand of the postcolonial theory. Seen in the light of the above, the paper concludes that African literature is advancing speedily, like its European counterpart, in the exploration of the peculiarities of (a) global capital. Keywords: Transnationalism, African literature, global character, postcolonial theory, The Tempest , Syorax , DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/65-05 Publication date: February 29 th 2020