Downloads: 117 | Views: 127
Research Paper | English Language and Literature | India | Volume 2 Issue 11, November 2013
The Folk Element in African Drama
Harshita Borah
Abstract: The folk element in African literature and drama owes its richness to the various language group of the continent. Wole Soyinka, the famous Nigerian playwright infuses Yoruba culture in almost all of his plays. His plays present the Yoruba idiom of ritual. The ancestral practice of a ritual however gets a different treatment whereby the human society is brought to a new level of communal consciousness. Two plays by Soyinka, which are The Strong Breed and Death and the Kings Horseman, employ Yoruba performance idioms with Western techniques and stylistic influences. In both the plays the ritual sequence is interrupted and substituted. This leads to a host of questions like did the ritual complete the cycle of purgation Or why does the community fall silent at the death of the performers of the rite My aim in this paper is to answer these questions and also present the dramatics of the Yoruba theatre.
Keywords: Yoruba, Ritual, Soyinka, Community, Cleansing
Edition: Volume 2 Issue 11, November 2013,
Pages: 171 - 172
Similar Articles with Keyword 'Ritual'
Downloads: 0
Book Review, English Language and Literature, India, Volume 11 Issue 2, February 2022
Pages: 697 - 699Ted Hughes: A Laureate of Animals
Downloads: 0
Research Paper, English Language and Literature, India, Volume 10 Issue 9, September 2021
Pages: 1480 - 1481Vedic Women's Educational Conditions and their Social Status