Download Clare Finburgh - University of Essex

Clare Finburgh
Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies
University of Essex
LT 356 Politics and Performance
WOLE SOYINKA (1934-): DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN (1975).
Wole Soyinka
The following notes provide background information to our seminar session. They are
intended as a starting point from which you can conduct further and more detailed
research. They include questions (in BLUE) that encourage you to explore themes and
issues in greater detail. If you refer to the notes in essays or examinations, please
ensure that you quote your source clearly.
SET TEXT: Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman (London: Methuen Student Edition,
1998).
INTRODUCTION
 S. is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and political activist. He won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1986.
 He studied at Ibadan University in Nigeria, and Leeds University in England. His literature
combines European traditions with beliefs and aesthetic devices from his native Yoruba culture
in Nigeria.
POSTCOLONIAL THEATRE AND HISTORY
 History often plays an important part in postcolonial literature, for political reasons. In DKH
history isn’t central, but it’s significant.
 Many postcolonial plays attempt to contest official versions of history that have been
preserved in imperialist history books. There appears to be a need for formerly subjugated
peoples to recuperate their own histories and not simply to accept history as it was written by
colonial invaders. Postcolonial theorist Homi Bhaba, writing of African-American novelist Toni
Morrison, speaks of the act of “rememoration” where, through retelling history and challenging
official historical narratives, writing can be turned into “the haunting memorial of what has been
excluded, excised, evicted” (“By Bread Alone”, in The Location of Culture, p. 198).
 E.g. if the story of this play were told by colonials, it might only represent the Africans is
barbarians who enact savage rituals. Revisions of histories try to dispel myths that have
circulated owing to official histories.
 DKH is based on a real historical event. On 19 December 1944 (S. makes a mistake when
he says in his “Author’s Note” that it’s 1946), the Alafin (King) of Oyo (southern Nigeria), named
Oba Siyenbola Oladigbolu I, died after a reign of 33 years. The Master of his Horse
(“Horseman”), Olokun Esin Jinadu, was excepted by the people of Oyo to “follow his master” by
committing suicide, since he’d enjoyed a privileged position during King’s reign. This ritual
suicide was traditionally committed either by taking poison, or by allowing a relative to assist in
strangulation. It’s unclear how strictly this ritual was adhered to in the 1940s. But a British
colonial officer at Oyo heard about the imminent ritual suicide and apprehended Jinadu. He
1
held him in custody in his colonial Residency. Jinadu’s youngest son, Murana, killed himself in
his father’s place.
 S. takes this story from history and tells it not from the perspective of the colonials, but from
the perspective of the colonised, or postcolonial subjects. He replaces the potentially biased
European account of the event.
 But DKH isn’t just a history play. S. takes the historical event and expands and transforms
it into an expressive, poetic, mythical play. It comments not simply on this one event in Nigeria
in 1944. It comments most notably on the insubstantial nature of categories such as rationalism
and ritualism; materialism and spirituality; modernity and tradition; past and present; Europe
and Africa; civilised and “uncivilised”.
SOYINKA’S POLITICS
 In his personal life, S. is very politically committed. He’s a passionate defender of justice
and human rights. One of his 1st plays, Eleven Men Dead at Hola (1958), was a critique of the
British colonial policy towards the Mau-Mau anti-colonial revolutionaries in Kenya. He also
wrote The Invention, which condemned Apartheid in South Africa (1958). Many of his other
plays concern corruption and the abuse of power in African states. In the late 1960s he was
involved in trying to broker peace in the Nigerian civil war with the separatist state Biafra. He
was imprisoned for 2 years (1967-69) for allegedly supplying arms to both sides. He’s always
spoken out about corruption, violence, human rights abuses, military rule. He’s had to go into
exile numerous times since the 1970s. He recently gave the prestigious Reith Lectures (2004),
where he spoke about global terror and the “Climate of Fear”
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2004/lectures.shtml).
 Like Brecht, Sartre or Genet, he’s therefore someone directly involved in politics.
 But his theatre, here DKH, treats politics obliquely. S. revives aspects of Africa’s precolonial past as a form of indirect political protest against colonial influences (like W.B. Yeats’s
revival of Irish Celtic traditions as a protest against English colonial occupation).
RITUAL AND “CULTURAL SELF-RETRIEVAL”
 The main focus of the play is the ritual suicide that the Horseman must enact. The lay
discusses not only Elesin’s duty, but also the whole nature, status and relevance of rituals in
modern-day society.
 Through his literature, S. seeks to explore and create a postcolonial Nigerian identity that
will look towards native, indigenous culture and tradition, and not towards the ex-colonial power
and influence of Europe. This is sometimes referred to as “Afrocentrism”. He wants to free his
art from the cultural imperialism of Europe, Christianity and Islam (evangelising Muslims and
Christians converted very large parts of Africa from native religions, to Islam or Christianity). He
wants Africans to become reacquainted with their indigenous beliefs, and with local traditional
theatrical and performance traditions. He seeks cultural self-determination, a sense of local
identity. He alludes to the “quest for racial self-retrieval”, the recovery of “an authentic cultural
existence” (Art, Dialogue and Outrage, pp. 86, 87). There’s therefore an interesting tension
between modernity and tradition: ancient, traditional myths and legends are used for the
modern political purpose of “mental decolonisation”: restoring cultural identity and native selfconfidence.
 Think about how Iyaloja in the play blames Elesin for having abandoned his pride in
and responsibility for his own cultural practices.
 What is the link in the play between the cultural affirmation and the political power of
the Africans?
 So S. wants to reclaim his indigenous culture, as a means towards political affirmation.
2
 He looks to his native Yoruba culture in Nigeria. In spite of British colonial occupation in
Nigeria, many indigenous cultural practices remained alive. Many performance traditions over
the African continent remained healthily intact, often flourishing informally at a community level.
E.g. the celebration of seasonal rituals; folk theatre; travelling theatre; oral storytelling; dance.
S. conducted active research into traditional African dramatic practices in the 1960s, and
infused his plays with his newfound cultural knowledge.
IS RITUALISM REACTIONARY?
 S.’s “cultural self-retrieval” can be problematic. The search for a pre-colonial essence of
“African” origin can be reactionary.
 One critic, Biodun Jeyifo accuses S. of attaching African people to absolute truths, from
tying them to reactionary notions of indisputable, unquestionable spiritual beliefs. (The Truthful
Lie, p. 60). He claims these indisputable beliefs are incompatible with modernity, and the idea
that all truths are relative.
 Edward Said (Palestinian-born academic; one of the founding members of postcolonial
studies) alludes to the concept of “nativism”: a movement that conjures up potent images of
what people or communities were supposedly like before colonialism. This “return to roots”, or
return to a cultural past, can be nostalgic. It can focus too much on the past, and not enough on
whether it’s compatible with the reality of the present and future (see Edward Said, “Yeats and
Decolonization”, in Dennis Walder, ed., Literature in the Modern World, p. 38).
 One could argue that S. apprehends these rituals and beliefs ahistorically and not
historically – he doesn’t take into consideration modern history, contemporary society. Does he
consider whether the rituals and traditions about which his play speaks are compatible with
their new historical surroundings?
 Think about the Praise-Singer’s discourse. Do you find him “nativist” or nostalgic?
 Jeyifo concludes that S.’s ideological message is dangerously backward-looking. It doesn’t
contribute usefully towards shaping the social, political, cultural identity of postcolonial Africans
today.
 In what ways can the revival of pre-colonial traditional beliefs and practices help to
resolve current-day problems of conflict, extreme poverty, HIV, etc.?
 Another problem with the revival of a cultural past is that it can lead to racism and
nationalism. There are suggestions in the play that this native people is linked to ancestors by
blood, and that there’s direct lineage between ancestors, the living and the unborn. One of the
women in the market says that Elesin’s the king’s horseman because “it is his blood that says
it”. There’s sense that people are bonded to each other through their race.
 Can you see any potential for racial, cultural or religious exclusion in this
discourse?
 Are there any instances of discrimination and prejudice by the Africans in the play?
 Are any characters marginalised or excluded?
 Jeyifo also points out that the beliefs and practices of the ancient Oyo Kingdom of Yoruba
are a “patriarchal, feudalist code” (34). These traditions often discriminate against women, and
are based on hierarchy, not democracy. So why uphold them now? The idea that the
Horseman must sacrifice himself for the dead King suggests that some humans are more
worthy of honour and sacrifice than others. When the play was first played in Nigeria (1976) in
Ife (one of the largest and oldest Yoruba towns in central Nigeria), it wasn’t received well,
because the Nigerians found the trappings of majesty and the talk of the King irrelevant in the
climate of social upheaval caused by the civil war and oil-boom.
 Can you find examples in the play of how the attitude towards women might also be
considered to be feudal?
3
 But S.’s theatre can be defended. His theatre can’t be explained simply in terms of
“spiritualism”, “nativism”, “feudalism”... It’s far more complex and elusive.
SOYINKA’S THEATRE OF “ANTINOMIES” AND THE “CULTURE CLASH”
 There are many ways in which S.’s theatre can be defended against these accusations of
reactionarism. His theatre constitutes a complex juxtaposition of contradictions that resists
recuperation by one single interpretation.
 In Yoruba culture, the god Ogun contains what S. calls “antinomies” – opposites. In his
essay “The Fourth Stage” (in Myth, Literature and the African World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1976), S. explores Yoruba cosmology. According to Yoruba belief, a chasm,
or transitional gulf, separates the world of the living from dead ancestors, and from unborn
future generations. Ogun, the god of iron, manages to cross this gulf and safely emerge on
other side. He therefore reunites humankind with their ancestors and with the unborn.
 Humans were so impressed by Ogun’s heroic feat of crossing the chasm, that they offered
him kingship. During his reign, he led his people to numerous victories in battle. But during one
military campaign he drank too much palm wine, and turned on his own people and killed them.
He therefore embodies opposites. He both liberates his people and destroys them; he both
helps and hinders.
 S. calls these antithetical qualities “antinomies”. For him, every quality contains elements of
its opposite.
 S. sees the duality between antinomies as the fundamental structure of human nature and
experience. This concept of antinomies contests European binary oppositions between good
and evil, freedom and confinement, beauty and ugliness, right and wrong. According to the
principle of antinomies, all good contains evil; all beauty contains ugliness.
 For this reason, S. insists in his “Author’s Note” that a play mustn’t:
acquire the facile tag of “clash of cultures”, a prejudicial label which, quite apart from its
frequent misapplication, presupposes a potential equality in every given situation of the
alien culture and the indigenous (p. 3).
 The concept of a “culture clash” assumes that the cultures, epochs, nations in the clash,
can be defined according to specific characteristics. E.g. African = barbaric, black, irrational,
backward. European = civilised, white, logical, enlightened.
 S. attempts to show in DKH that each culture is amorphous, shifting and indefinable,
because it contains all these antinomies.
 Which characters in particular in the play are guilty of this stereotyping?
 DKH therefore provides no clear definitions, final closure, ultimate conclusions about the
nature of different cultures and beliefs. S. shows the complexities and contradictions inherent in
all of them. He refuses to validate any particular ideological position with his literature. He
provokes questions, rather than providing answers. He conducts committed critique, strategic
interrogation of all forms of ideology and ideological practice, including those he himself might
subscribe to in his own personal life, like Marxism or Afrocentricity.
 The ritualism inherent in all cultures: Colonials in the play consider local people to be
ritualistic, backward, barbaric, uncivilised. But they don’t notice parallel characteristics in their
own culture.
 Find examples of how the colonials criticise the Africans for being governed by
ceremonies and rituals.
 Find examples of how the colonials “exoticise” the Africans.
 None of colonials are capable of seeing Other’s culture from perspective of Other. The
“Wide iron-barred gate” through which Elesin and Pilkings have their discussion in Act 5,
symbolises the barriers to understanding between the 2 men. The colonials can only
4
understand the Other from the perspective of the Self. They contrast markedly with the local
Christians and Muslims represented by Amusa and Simon, both of whom are capable of
respecting the importance of the Horseman’s ritual, even if they don’t believe in it. Simon and
Jane on the other hand, think it’s harmless fun to wear the Egungun death mask and dance
around like apes.
 Find examples of Amusa’s and Simon’s tolerance and understanding.
 Find examples of the colonials’ intolerance.
 The colonials see Britain and Europe as the central location of reason, civilisation,
progress.
 Find examples in the Pilkings’s discourse of how they feel they are “civilising”
Africa.
 S. adds 2 significant details to the historical event of Horseman’s death. These 2 details
enable the reader/spectator to note that Europe is just as entrenched in ritualism and just as
marred by barbarism, as Africa. Therefore, S. deconstructs the idea of 2 different and clearlydefined cultures.
 What are the two examples in the play of European ritualism?
 It’s significant that S. adds the historical setting of World War Two. The Horseman’s ritual is
considered barbaric by British colonials. But Olunde tells Jane of all the horrendous injuries
he’s had to treat in England owing to the War. Violence, murder and destruction in Europe are
far more savage than the strictly controlled sacrifices of the ritual killing. Olunde calls the war in
Europe “mass suicide”, in strict contrast to ritual suicide his father will commit (p. 58).
 S. explains that Yoruba rituals are performed for the benefit of the community. In Yoruba
culture, when Ogun’s transitional journey’s enacted in ritual drama, the actor performs not just
a play, but a vital function for the community. Through the actor, living people are integrated
with cosmic forces, and are reunited with their ancestors and with unborn generations. So
Ogun’s transitional journey is conducted by an actor on behalf of the entire community. The
audience becomes energised and strengthened by the ritual performance. There’s therefore a
close relationship between the ritual act of the individual, and its impact on the community. S.
writes of the “visceral intertwining of each individual with the fate of the entire community”
(Myth, Literature and the African World, p. 53). He describes how this kind of tragedy differs
from classical European tragedy, because death enables regeneration:
The concept of tragedy can be event-ended, in other words, the circumstance
constitutes the end of the tragic act. Man overreaches himself, displays a flaw, he is
destroyed, and that is the end, that is the whole tragic story. On the other hand, I spoke
earlier of the experience of disintegration and reassemblage of the human personality
for the sake of, for the benefit of the community. Now that does not in itself cancel this
process, this epilogue of reassemblage does not nullify the tragic experience … The
community in fact absorbs the experience or tragedy .. This is part of ht gain that this
particular approach to the tragic experience holds for the community.’ (Interview with
Soyinka at the African Studies Association Conference, Los Angeles, Nov. 1979,
quoted in Ketu H. Katrak, Wole Soyinka and Modern Tragedy).
Therefore, in comparison with the ritual mass killings of World Wars One and Two that
dominated twentieth-century Europe, the Horseman’s suicide appears distinctly civilised.
 Therefore, S. successfully shows the ritualism inherent in both, or all cultures.
 Feudalism and Women’s rights: In some respects, the attitude to women in play could be
seen as feudal. But S.’s portrayal of women is far from simplistic or reductionist.
 Women in DKH can be seen as self-affirming.
 Find examples of this. Consider the girls in the market, Pilkings’s wife Jane, the
bride’s mother Iyaloja, the bride herself, especially at the end of the play.
5
 The Antinomies inherent in Elesin: Elesin’s a very complex character, who embodies the
antinomies inherent in all people.
 He’s supposed to be noble and virtuous, and he gains the confidence of the whole
community, which celebrates in preparing for his death. The community gives him a young wife
and “rich clothes” (p. 15). Iyaloja feels she can’t offend him by refusing him the hand of her
daughter in marriage, because he’s already part-god, since he’s begun his journey across the
gulf to the world of the dead and the unborn:
If we offend you now we have mortified the gods. We offend heaven itself (p. 15).
 But Iyaloja and the Praise-Singer express doubts about Elesin’s sincerity.
 Find examples of their doubt.
 Elesin blames Pilkings’s forces for stopping his ritual suicide. But is he
disingenuous? What are his real reasons for not committing suicide?
 Elesin’s perhaps a metaphor for the corruption of those in power. He abuses the generosity
of the community because of his eminent position, but he then doesn’t fulfil his duty to the
community. He’s a façade of bravado, a fraud. In a clever play-on-words, Iyaloja says: “We
called you leader and oh, how you led us on” (p. 75).
Olunde and his new Bride (Oakland University production, U.S.A., 1999).
 When Elesin finally dies, it’s not a rite. It’s suicide, to provide egotistical personal relief from
his grief for his son’s death, and his shame.
 But is Elesin really a coward? Is he really a materialist who has no spiritual
dimension? Or is he just showing an essentially human attachment to life, pleasure,
sex?
 Antinomies inherent in Olunde’s ritual suicide: Olunde commits the ritual suicide in
place of his father. But his meaning of this ritual has potentially changed radically.
 It’s very significant that Elesin doesn’t follow the time-honoured pattern of the ritual. The
ritual’s interrupted. S. therefore introduces Brechtian interruption, that forces characters and
spectators alike to reflect on the significance of the ritual, and its meaning within the context of
modern-day society. This interruption begins when Elesin expresses his wish to marry Iyaloja’s
daughter as his final request, but she’s already betrothed. Iyaloja has the dilemma of what to
do. Already the reader/spectator’s invited to contemplate the seriousness of this ritual.
 Elesin doesn’t complete the ritual. His son Olunde feels it’s imperative to keep the ritual
alive, so kills himself instead.
 It’s very significant that Olunde performs the ritual and not Elesin. S. makes a statement on
the significance of pre-modern beliefs and practices in a modern society of scepticism and
rationality. Against his father’s and the community’s wishes, Olunde has been to England and
studied medicine – a rational European science. But this doesn’t mean he renounces his native
ritual practice. The transgression of cultural boundaries hasn’t necessarily led to the
transformation of fundamental beliefs that one might expect. Olunde has had critical distance
on traditions, and decided to return to them, embrace them. He appears now to have a greater
appreciation of his own culture, and is determined to keep it alive. He’s embraced traditional
spiritualism into his modern existence. Olunde’s body, that appears at the end of the play,
therefore encapsulates the antinomies of modernity and tradition, science and ritual practice,
scepticism and belief, Europe and Africa.
6
 “Nativism” and cultural self-retrieval can be criticised for perpetuating an essentialist link to
the past, to blood lineage. But Olunde wasn’t obliged through duty, destiny or blood to perform
the ritual. Olunde doesn’t adhere to tradition because of a blood line or “cord that links us to the
great origin” as his father Elesin calls it (p. 69). Olunde was offered a way out by the Pilkings,
but refused. Olunde chose to do it with his own free will. The name Olunde might come from
the Yoruba word Olundanide, meaning “he who rises by himself” (see James Gibbs, Wole
Soyinka, p. 125). S. therefore shows how ancient beliefs and practices can hold the place in
modern society not via heredity or obligation, but via elective choice. This is highly significant in
order to understand that people today who practise religions, wear headscarves, etc. might do
it out of choice, not obligation to feudality, family or community.
 Olunde has reversed the feudal patriarchal order. He hasn’t taken orders from a father or
community. He’s affirmed own his subjectival will. Elesin learns his lesson at the end, from his
son, not the other, more traditional and feudal way round. He’s also reversed feudalism
because the father now falls before the son and asks for forgiveness (p. 69). Iyaloja says:
“there are some who choose to reverse the cycle of our being” (p. 77).
 What, in your opinion, is the significance of the actual ritual?
 It could be seen as an ahistorical revival of ancient rites. But perhaps it also has more
historical, social, political significance.
 Firstly, Olunde, and S. could comment on the fact that to understand a complex modern
world fully, humans must acknowledge their debts to past cultures and civilisations that create
societies and their passions, prejudices, limitations, possibilities. Modernity mustn’t succumb to
a false sense of its own adequacy, but must acknowledge the importance of the past. Human
consciousness is like archaeological layers or geological strata of past myths, legends,
literatures, arts, histories, experiences. Perhaps it’s artificial to talk about the present, when
we’re so affected by past experiences as individuals and as cultures. Our present is created out
of our past. Perhaps Olunde’s act constitutes an attempt to understand the modern world by
searching in the past. It indicates his indebtedness to a past that’s ignored by a modern society
that’s obsessed with everything new, progress, linear movement forward.
 Secondly, Olunde’s ritual suicide could be seen on a metaphorical, rather than literal level.
The horseman’s death is supposed to preserve the spiritual well-being of the community. But
this could perhaps be seen in directly political or social terms as a metaphor for the individual’s
commitment not to its own egotistical needs and desires, but to the needs and desires of the
community.
 Thirdly, the death of the King and his entourage might metaphorically represent the old
order renouncing its authority and passing it on to new generations. This might represent social
and political renewal. Elesin’s told that he mustn’t stay on the earth to eat “left-overs” (p. 66).
He must leave to make way for new generations. The name Olunde might also come from the
Yoruba word Olundande meaning “one who liberates” (see James Gibbs, Wole Soyinka, p.
125). Olunde’s death is perhaps not reactionary and backward-looking, because it might
symbolise the death of old ways, and the start of new beginnings. S. states that rituals energise
the community, enable “the experience of disintegration and reassemblage of the human
personality for the sake of, for the benefit of the community”; the “human experience of failure
and recovery” ((Interview with Soyinka at the African Studies Association Conference). This is
apparent in the final words of play uttered by Iyaloja to Elesin’s pregnant bride:
Now forget the dead, forget even the living. Turn your mind only to the unborn (p. 84).
 S. neither romanticises tradition, nor demonises modernity. He shows complexities of both.
 Antinomies inherent in the play’s ending:
 What future, in your opinion, does the end of the play hold?
7
 The status of the ritual suicide is very ambiguous at the end of the play. Olunde has
committed the ritual suicide in order to perpetuate the practice and ensure the well-being of the
community.
 But the future’s uncertain, because Olunde’s gesture might be invalid, tokenistic. Because
the ritual hasn’t been performed by the Horseman, it might not count. Likewise, it’s not clear
whether Elesin’s suicide will be effective, since his motives are grief and shame.
 S. therefore leaves the future very open and precarious. He makes no didactic statements
about how cultural self-retrieval might ensure a successful future for African nations.
DRAMATIC STRUCTURE
 In the play’s thematic content, S. juxtaposes tradition and modernity, Europe and Africa,
spiritualism and rationalism. He uses the totality of his cultural heritage, both African and
European, as a resource for fashioning a distinct postcolonial theatre.
 In the form of his theatre, he also combines elements of these different and
interpenetrating traditions and styles.
 Many aspects of DKH evoke European dramatic traditions: the play’s in 5 acts, like a neoclassical tragedy. It contains a linear plot, where crisis arises, and is then gradually resolved,
like in Aristotelian drama. It’s also concentrated more or less in 24 hours.
 The play also echoes parts of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, where a suicide
takes place in final scene. And S. combines elements of comedy with tragedy, like
Shakespeare.
 But S. shows both his mastery of European traditions, and his ability to transform them. He
creates his own unique genre of theatre that doesn’t conform to Western traditions of Realism
and unity. He combines European Realism with traditional African performance practices, to
create a hybrid style. Right from the beginning of the play he includes music; dance; drumming;
trance-like movements; chanting; ritual cries like “Olohun-iyo” (p. 7). He creates a ritualistic
atmosphere, with the Praise singer’s and women’s exaltation of Elesin. Also Elesin tells the
story of the Not-I bird in the voice of a raconteur, which is evocative of African oral tradition.
 With language, too, S. is both indebted to colonial tradition – he writes in English – but also
transforms it. Language is a vastly complex issue for postcolonial writers.
 Why do you think language is a complex issue for postcolonial writers? Should an
African writer write in the former colonial language like French or English, or in their
native language?
 Colonies were presumed to have no culture, identity or history before colonising countries
arrived. They were labelled “pre-historical”, “pre-cultural”. So it wasn’t valid for the colonised to
speak their own language. They were considered “uncivilised” if the spoke their own language.
So if writers from colonies or ex-colonies write in English, French, etc., they’re writing in the
language of oppressor and succumbing to the attitude that their language and culture aren’t
valid; that they’re inferior.
 In addition, by using English, French, etc., writers are likely only to be accessible to the
educated middle classes in their own country. E.g. if a Sri Lankan writer chooses to write in
English, millions of Sri Lankans who don’t speak English won’t understand.
 But on the other hand, in countries with many languages, e.g. India, English can serve as a
useful lingua franca – common language – and be accessible to more people. Audience is a
crucial and very problematic question for postcolonial writers.
 And, if a play’s written in the language of the oppressor, the oppressor can understand,
and recognise the protest.
 Many writers were educated in English/French, and feel more at home in English than in
their own native language. Indian playwright Badal Sircar writes,
8
To us, it [English] is not a neutral language. It is associated with the British imperialist
rule over our country. By rights and by nature I should feel aversion to it. Yet this
language has been more of a medium of my education than my own language – and
for me this language has been a window to the wide world. Hence, logically, I should
be thankful to it. Another contradiction (quoted in Brian Crow with Chris Banfield, An
Introduction to Post-colonial Theatre, 7-8).
Some playwrights come to the metropole (colonising or ex-colonising country, e.g. Britain,
France, Belgium) and take part in theatre groups there, e.g. S. at the Royal Court in London.
He draws much inspiration from “colonial” theatre. Therefore, it’s impossible to see the
language and culture of coloniser as the “enemy”, because sometimes they’re formative and
inspirational for writers.
 By mastering English, French, etc. and European dramatic traditions, writers from the excolonised nations can bring modifications to these languages, changing them from within. E.g.
S. has created his own distinctive, strikingly powerful style of English.
 He masters different registers of English as well as anyone whose 1 st language is English.
E.g. Pilkings and his wife speak in an instantly recognisable upper-class register. What Pilkings
says about Olunde, is true of S.: “He’s picked up the idiom all right” (p. 72). And S. also
masters humour, e.g. when women in market tease Amusa in Sc. 3. He also uses English to
caricature sycophants to the colonials and their poor English. E.g. Sergeant Amusa speaks
ludicrous pidgin: “Mista Pirinkin… Mista Pirinkin…” (p. 24).
 As a writer from ex-colonised nation, S. brings modifications to English, changes it from
within. He imbues English with non-English, non-European recurring metaphors.
 Can you find examples of non-English metaphors, images or words that S.
introduces into the English language?
 Find other examples of non-English or non-European practices and traditions that
he incorporates in his play.
 The English language is no longer centred in England. The centre is relocated by
postcolonial writers like S.
CONCLUSION
 S.’s concept of antinomies – the deconstruction of binary oppositions – is apparent in both
the themes and form of his play: the British and local African cultures are no longer opposites,
and nor are European and African performance traditions. They’re held in a complex and
creative postmodern tension with each other.
FURTHER READING
Homi Bhaba, “By Bread Alone”, in The Location of Culture ((London: Routledge, 1994).
Brian Crow (with Chris Banfield), “Wole Soyinka and the Nigerian Theatre of Ritual Vision”, in
An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996). Crow makes some sweeping statements about Soyinka’s investment in tradition
and ritual being reactionary. You can also read the introduction to this book.
Eldred Durosimi Jones, The Writing of Wole Soyinka (London: Heinemann, 1983). This study
provides a survey of Soyinka’s life, drama, poetry and fiction.
James Gibbs, Wole Soyinka (London: Macmillan, 1986). Good general chronological overview
of Soyinka’s theatre.
Mpalive-Hangson Msiska, Wole Soyinka (Plymouth: Northcote House, 1998). An excellent
study, that engages with the recent postcolonial debates of Edward Said and Homi
Bhaba, on orientalism and hybridity.
Biodun Jeyifo, The Truthful Lie: Essays in a Sociology of African Drama (London: New Beacon
Books, 1985).
9
Jane Plastow, “Introduction” and “Notes” to Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman
(London: Methuen Student Edition, 1998). This set text includes informative notes and
an interview with Soyinka.
Edward Said, “Yeats and Decolonization”, in Dennis Walder, ed., Literature in the Modern
World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature and the African World (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1976).
Interview at the African Studies Association Conference, Los Angeles, Nov. 1979,
quoted in Ketu H. Katrak, Wole Soyinka and Modern Tragedy: A Study of Dramatic
Theory and Practice (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986).
Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture (London: Methuen, 1993).
When looking for materials in the university library, think laterally: search not only under
the author’s and text’s names, but also under key words related to the text. E.g. for
Bertolt Brecht, you could search under “German drama”; “twentieth-century German
theatre”; “art and war in Nazi Germany”; “political theatre”, etc. You can also conduct
online searches for materials using Literature Online and Jstor (available via the
university library website – click “Databases”). Again, think laterally if you don’t
immediately find relevant resources.
10