Soyinka Research Articles

Resonance of pluralism and radical humanism in wole Soyinka's playwright discourse

Resonance of pluralism and radical humanism in wole Soyinka's playwright discourse

Navigating the evolution of African Drama: Yoruba folk theatre and Wole Soyinka

Navigating the evolution of African Drama: Yoruba folk theatre and Wole Soyinka

Colonial Resistance and Cultural Revival: Insights from African Postcolonial Writings

The impact of colonization on native cultural life, modernization, and anticolonial nationalism led African writers to reflect on colonial encounters and their effects on social, economic, and cultural aspects. They felt tension between traditional and colonial values, seeking to re-discover cultural roots. Through a critical evaluation of the significant works by key African postcolonial writers such as Cyprian Ekwensi, D. O. Fagunwa, J. P. Clark, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and others, this article seeks to explore how these African authors have dealt with the issue of colonial encounter in their writings. The focus is also on highlighting how these African authors have voiced their opposition to colonial legacies and have actively engaged in the resuscitation and celebration of local customs and cultural heritage through their writings in the postcolonial era. This research highlights the significant role that literature has in creating and expressing postcolonial African consciousness by analysing topics such as resistance, identity, tradition, and cultural pride. The study also examines how these literary contributions have actively questioned and dismantled colonial narratives, creating an opportunity for the genuine voices of African nations to emerge and thrive.

Decolonizing Performance: Wole Soyinka’s Synthesis of Theatrical Traditions in Death and the King’s Horseman

Decolonizing Performance: Wole Soyinka’s Synthesis of Theatrical Traditions in Death and the King’s Horseman

Формальные и функциональные особенности стиля ранней поэзии Воле Шойинки в аспекте транслатологии (на материале стихотворения Telephone Conversation)

The article presents a stylistic analysis of Wole Soyinka’s early poem “Telephone Conversation”. The presented analysis allows to discover the most peculiar features of W. Soyinka’s idiostyle. The poem, the cultural affiliation of which presents obvious difficulties for the translator, has been published twice in Russian. The article provides a comparative analysis of the original text and its translations; as a result of the analysis, the means of expressiveness and tropes are revealed, which allow to convey formal and functional features of the poetic text in translation into Russian.

Anti-Othering in the Lion and the Jewel: A Postcolonial and Oriental Analysis of Wole Soyinka’s Play the Lion and the Jewel

This paper tends to propose a new term for the literary world called “anti-Othering” analyzing an African as well as a post colonial play The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka. This paper guides the literary world to rethink how Wole Soyinka has subtly introduced the idea of anti-othering in the play The Lion and the Jewel. In this paper, how the world is affected by the idea of othering of the west, is displayed first and then with textual referring to the play The Lion and the Jewel the idea of anti-othering is proposed. This work reflects on how the power of mimicry can be used for both othering and for anti-othering. It illustrates how Wole Soyinka treats a performance and uses the tool mimicry to found the ground idea of‘anti-othering’.Finally, the paper argues why the world needs to identify anti-othering now.

Construal of Nation and Identity: A Postcolonial Analysis of the Play Madmen and Specialists by Wole Soyinka

Construal of Nation and Identity: A Postcolonial Analysis of the Play Madmen and Specialists by Wole Soyinka

Ageism and Ableism in Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Lion and The Jewel’ and ‘The Strong Breed’

Ageism and ableism are socio-cultural concepts that have, in recent times, constituted topical issues that are being debated by literary critics and theatre practitioners who are of the opinion that literature should be capable of reflecting on the variegated issues that concern us as individuals living in a society. This is what is generally referred to as the human condition. These critics see literature as being all-encompassing, that is, as being capable of meditating on any subject that centers on the human person. Utilizing Augusto Boal's "Theatre of the Oppressed" as our theoretical foundation, this study aims to examine ageism and ableism, both within historical contexts and literature, in a comprehensive manner. Subsequently, we will focus on their specific manifestations within Wole Soyinka's works, namely, "The Lion and The Jewel" and "The Strong Breed." This study posits that our society must recognize the significance of elderly and disabled individuals. Their disabilities, notwithstanding, still have important roles to play in the theatre of life.

Dramatic Dissent in Wole Soyinka’s Metaphysical Play Death and the King’s Horseman (1975) and Biyi Bandele’s Netflix Adaptation Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman (2022)

Abstract Approaching the theme of this special issue as a dramatic structure, the contribution investigates the representation of dissenting practices in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Biyi Bandele’s Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman. First published in 1975, Soyinka’s metaphysical play dramatises the events surrounding the eponymous protagonist Elesin Oba who, according to Yoruba cosmology, must follow the king in death to ensure harmony between this world and the next. Questioning both metaphysical and Marxist readings of the play, I argue that its employment of ritual as a dramaturgical device functions to explore the intricate reasons for failed leadership in post-independence Nigeria. This re-reading of Soyinka’s classic is informed by its recent screen adaptation, Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman, which was co-produced by Ebonylife Films and Netflix and directed by the late Nigerian playwright and filmmaker Biyi Bandele. Reinforcing new Nollywood’s budding relationship with Netflix and its accompanying globalisation, Bandele’s movie appropriates the play’s dramatic structure of dissent on the levels of cinematography and editing, mise-en-scène and sound, inviting its transnational viewers to consider past and present manifestations of dissent as a means of managing and envisioning possible solutions to contemporary conflicts. The conclusion stresses that the ritual form presents a flexible device to interrogate historically specific power relations and encourage distinct generations of audiences to imagine their forms, causes, and alternatives; whereas Soyinka’s play suggests that these alternatives rest on the capabilities of the educated middle classes, Bandele’s movie constructs more diversified audiences which may settle for its consoling or dissenting aesthetics, respectively.

Some Early Soyinka Letters

Among the papers of James Simmons held at the Rose Library of Emory University are nine letters he received from Wole Soyinka as well as one from Soyinka’s British partner, Barbara Dixon, both of whom had been his classmates at Leeds University in the mid-1950s. The letters cover Soyinka’s activities from July 29, 1958, a year after he had graduated from Leeds, until January 13, 1960, just after he returned to Nigeria. During this period Soyinka had worked as a broadcaster for the BBC, been a play reader for the Royal Court Theatre, and a teacher in London schools. He also travelled to Paris seeking employment as a singer. Much of this time he and Barbara were under financial pressure, and their relationship eventually broke up a year after their child had been born. These letters and others like them from later years in his life yield vital information for Soyinka’s future biographers.

The Nobel Literature Prize and Peacebuilding

Abstract Organized as part of the Cultural Olympiad for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, “The Nobel Laureates of Literature: An Olympic Gathering” featured the largest ever assembly of Nobel laureates in literature for a single occasion. It was expected that the eight writers in attendance, namely Joseph Brodsky, Czesław Miłosz, Toni Morrison, Kenzaburō Ōe, Octavio Paz, Claude Simon, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott, would singularly promote the values of peacebuilding. Instead, the laureates demonstrated varying degrees of uneasiness. By close-reading the panel discussion transcript in conjunction with the writers’ Nobel lectures, this paper argues for an alternative reading of the Olympic Gathering as a platform where the artistic visions of the eight writers interacted with each other on topics related to mutual understanding, privacy, and communication. Rather than reinforcing the liturgy of global peacebuilding, the Nobel laureates transformed the Olympic Gathering into a critical space that simultaneously promotes and deconstructs its peacebuilding processes.

TRANSLATION OF CULTURAL ASPECTS FROM ENGLISH INTO ARABIC: A CASE STUDY OF A DANCE OF THE FORESTS

Culture is about the mode of life and activity, way of thinking, and artifacts, which are associated with particular communities and the language which serves as a vehicle for meanings. This paper is aimed at describing cultural challenges and their translation procedures from English into Arabic; it also investigates choices of translation procedures that can be used to overcome cultural aspects problems. This study limits itself to cultural factors. It follows Newmark’s approach (1988) on culture translation. The corpus of this study is a play entitled A Dance of The Forests written by Wole Soyinka. The study is a qualitative study and cultural occurrences are analyzed and their translations are rated by raters who are native speakers of Arabic. The research reveals that translating a literary work like a play requires the use of strategies and procedures like domestication and oblique translation procedures, which are found to be vital in translating drama text from English into Arabic.

Application of the schema-theoretic approach in the interpretation of the stream of consciousness in Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters

Wole Soyinka’s novel The Interpreters (1965) is arguably one of the most challenging post-colonial novels to read and understand easily. The present paper adopts a pre-test post-test control group experimental treatment design. (Sixty university undergraduate students from three universities were selected and placed in two groups: experimental and control. 60 students from two hundred and thirty, 3 universities eighteen universities. The experimental group was taught using the schema theory and the control group was taught using the conventional method which entails whole class lecture, teacher led instruction. After the experimental treatment a pretest and a post-test was administered. A t-test ruled out pre-experimental differences between the groups. A one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) shows that there were statistically significant difference in comprehension level due to the Schema theory method. A multiple regression analysis established that different selected aspects of the stream-of-consciousness: interior monologue, association, montage, plot structure and myth and archetype contribute to the score. The study established that comprehension of stream of consciousness, as a literary technique can be investigated using schema theory.

Alter/ Native and the New Historicism Contents of Second Generation Nigerian Poets

This paper examines the intersection and synergy between Alter/Native criticism and the New Historicism in the context of second-generation Nigerian poets. Alter/ Native criticism focuses on indigenous literary traditions, cultural contexts, and oral histories, while New Historicism explores the interplay between literature and historical conditions. By applying these critical approaches to the works of second-generation Nigerian poets and novelists, such as Niyi Osundare, Chinua Achebe, and Wole Soyinka, this study aims to shed light on how these poets and novelists enrich our understanding of Nigerian literature by examining the cultural and historical contexts in which their works are produced. Drawing from indigenous literary traditions, the second-generation Nigerian poets employ AlterNative criticism to explore themes of identity, cultural heritage, and the preservation of indigenous voices. Their works incorporate elements of folklore, proverbs, and cultural symbols, reflecting a deep engagement with Nigerian cultural heritage. Additionally, the New Historicism provides insights into how the historical conditions of Nigeria, including colonization, independence struggles, and post-colonial challenges, influence the themes and styles of the poets' works. Through the application of the New Historicism, we can examine how these poets engage with and respond to historical events, power dynamics, and social realities. By examining the poems and critical perspectives of second-generation Nigerian poets, this paper showcases the synergies and mutual enrichment between Native criticism and New Historicism. The combination of these approaches enhances our understanding of the cultural and historical dimensions of the poets' works, providing deeper insights into the complexities of Nigerian literature. This study contributes to the broader field of Nigerian literary scholarship and offers a comprehensive understanding of the contributions made by second-generation Nigerian poets to the Nigerian literary canon.

Religious Meditations and Mediation in Selected Plays of Wole Soyinka

Major critical inquiries into the theatre of Wole Soyinka agree that his plays draw inspiration from two basic levels. One, which is a purely mythic consciousness perceptible in his early plays such as such as The Road and A Dance of the Forests, presents his etherealisation of African spiritualities and their interpolations with modern existence. The other is a social or political consciousness which deploys those mythic forms from ancestral memory (especially that of Ogun) as intervening tools on the conditions of dystopia in the postcolonial Nigerian landscape mirrored in his plays. By focusing on his plays The Trials of Brother Jero, Death and the King’s Horseman, Requiem for a Futurologist and Alapata Apata, this article argues that these two thrusts are harmonised in Soyinka’s mimesis on spiritualities or religion in his dramaturgy. The article locates the ambivalences in Soyinka’s refractions on spiritualities which anchor on the polarities of meditation and mediation and recognises that while meditation gives allowance for the playwright to engage on the locus of spiritualities, mediation is inspired by the crises of “modern” spiritualities which is one of the malaises in Soyinka’s hybridised postcolonial space. The conclusion of the article is sceptical about Soyinka’s prescription of hybridised spiritualities as panacea to the crises of religion but sees the need for continuous dialogue as precursor to mutual understanding and cohabitation between adherents of diverse spiritualities in the pluralised communities.

Julius Nyerere: The Intellectual Pan-Africanist and the Question of African Unity

The question of African unity has dominated political and intellectual discourse for quite a while, yet the approach, mechanism and substance seem to be ever elusive. The rhetoric has raised so much dust it has blinded political leaders as to the concrete measures that need to be undertaken. To Julius Nyerere, the quest for unity, both nationally and continentally, was a lifetime undertaking and commitment, the lifeline for the emancipation and development of African people. Nyerere will forever be remembered for pushing and spearheading the growth of Kiswahili in East and Central Africa, which epitomized his belief that Kiswahili could promote African unity, just as it had done in Tanzania. He gave content and meaning to Tanzania`s independence by recognising the role of an indigenous language in the development of cultural authenticity and national unity. To him, pan-Africanism meant self-determination in political, economic, ideological, social and cultural spheres. As globalisation witnesses growing nationalism in other continents of the world (such as pan-Europeanism in Europe), and as Africa faces the prospect of increased marginalisation, African thinkers, intellectuals and literary icons such as Ali Mazrui, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Okot P’Bitek and Wole Soyinka have made passionate pleas for a cultural re-awakening, which they see as a first step towards social, political and economic growth. It is the thesis of this paper that by drawing from Nyerere’s example, African renaissance and the dream of pan-Africanism shall be realised and that Africans shall not only discover themselves and uphold their identity but also appreciate the inherent power enshrined in their cultural heritage. It is argued that over-reliance on imperialist colonial languages—which by and large are emblazoned with Western world views, cultural values and ideals

AN ACTION RESEARCH ON MANAGING AND DIRECTING DRAMA IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND BLENDING THE POSTCOLONIAL FEMINIST DRAMA

This paper focusses on the difficulties in the production of a live drama in an educational institution from auditioning the actors to seamless performance on stage. The actors were chosen from students of literature doing their undergraduate and postgraduate studies. A postcolonial drama, The Lion and The Jewel by Wole Soyinka was chosen and the drama was staged. The researcher has been the director of the drama and a field study has been studied on the process of creating a successful drama. It involves stage management, producing the play, directing, acting, light design, set design and costume design. Stage management is one of the crucial factors in a drama which needs to be taken care of from the practice sessions to the show time. The outcome of the show relies entirely on the management of the stage. In this study Yoruba’s drama is taken and replicating them was a tougher one which includes costume, realistic stage setting, lighting, sound setting and their dances. The drama is also chosen to highlight the sufferings of women in African society and how they are victimized. All these aspects are previously designed and experimented practically to find out the shortcomings in staging a live drama in an educational institution. Questionnaires are also designed and circulated among the actors for further study.

Wole Soyinka as a Nigerian Ecofeminist and an Antipathetical to Globalized Experiences

Wole Soyinka as a Nigerian Ecofeminist and an Antipathetical to Globalized Experiences

Death and The King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka (review)

Death and The King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka (review)

The Banality of Power in the Postcolony: Grifters, Tricksters, and Charlatans in Wole Soyinka’s Jero Plays

The Banality of Power in the Postcolony: Grifters, Tricksters, and Charlatans in Wole Soyinka’s Jero Plays