OVERTHROWING THE STATUS QUO: INTERPRETING WOLE SOYINKA`S THE BACCHAE OF EURIPIDES FROM A MARXIST PERSPECTIVE
Abstract
Certain critics of contemporary Nigerian drama represented by Abiola Irele, for example, seem to place the plays of Wole Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel laureate on literature, squarely within the confines of ritual aesthetics, in terms of dramatic taxonomy. Although ritual, especially Ogunism, exerts a huge influence and, no doubt, constitutes a major master code for interpreting a play like The Bacchae of Euripides, this paper argues that the religious elements in this transnational play merely serve as a camouflage for the exploration of class struggle. Class consciousness, though expressed through religious symbolism, is given much force and weight in the play from its beginning to the end that it seems to be the principal theme of this play. In the text, the masses knowledge of their position as not given, constrains them to remain steadfast and pushful until they overthrow the status quo through mass revolution, thereby securing unfettered freedom for themselves. In the light of the foregoing, this paper will attempt to interpret The Bacchae from Marxist perspective in order to show that not all Soyinka`s plays lack solid class ideology.
Keywords: Overthrowing, Bacchae, Marxist, SoyinkaKeywords
References
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- Dooley, D. J. (1979). Moral Vision in the Canadian Novel. Toronto: Clarke.
- Etherton, Michael. (1982). The Development of African Drama. New York: Africana Publishing Compnay.
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Abstract
References
- Dieke, Ikenna. (2010). Allegory and Meaning. Lanham: University Press of America.
- Dooley, D. J. (1979). Moral Vision in the Canadian Novel. Toronto: Clarke.
- Etherton, Michael. (1982). The Development of African Drama. New York: Africana Publishing Compnay.
- Eze, Norbert Oyibo. (2014). “A Comparative Study of Selected Plays of Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi,” PhD Thesis Submitted to the School of Postgraduate Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
- Gibbs, James. (1986). Modern Dramatists: Wole Soyinka. New York: Grove Press.
- Hege, G.F.W. (1967). The Phenomenology of Mind. Trans. J.B. Bailie. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
- Irele, Abiola (1974). “The Season of a Mind: Wole Soyinka and the Nigerian Crisis”. The Benin Review. 1: 111-122.
- Kamenka, Eugene. (1979). Marxism and Ethics. London: Macmillan.
- Macintyre, Alisdair. (1971). “Existentialism”. Sartre: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Mary Warnock. New York: Double Day and Company Inc.
- Maduako, Obi. (1991). Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to His Writing. Ibadan: Heinemann.
- Moore, Gerald. (1971). Wole Soyinka. London: Evans Brothers.
- Morawski, Stefan. (1977). “Introduction”. Marx and Engels on Literature and Art. Eds. Lee Baxandall and Stefan Morawski. New York: International General.
- Muoneke, Romanus. (1980). “Adaptation of Greek Tragedies: The Gods are not to Blame (Rotimi) and The Bacchae of Euripides (Soyinka). B.A. Project submitted to the Department of English, University ofNigeria, Nsukka.
- Neitzsche, Fredrick cited in Obi Maduako. (1991). Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to his Writing. Ibadan: Heinemann.
- Ruy, Jules Chaix. (1968). The Superman: From Nietzsdie to Tailhard de Chardin. Trans. Marina Smyth-Kok. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
- Soyinka, Wole. (1973). Collected Plays I. London: Oxford University Press.
- The Communist Manifesto. www.marxist.org
- Williams, Adebayo. (1981). “The Mythic Imagination and Social Theories: Soyinka and Euripides”. Okike: An African Journal of New Writing. 18: 36 -44.
Details
| Primary Language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal Section | Articles |
| Authors | |
| Publication Date | December 29, 2015 |
| Submission Date | December 27, 2015 |
| Published in Issue | Year 2015 |
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