TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……….………………………….………………ii

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………1

Chapter 1: Review of Literature…………………………………………….7

Chapter 2: Characterisation…………………………………………………13

2.1The Yoruba supernatural beings……………………………………………14

2.2 The living people………………………………………………………….15

Chapter 3: the Different Forms of Yoruba Traditional Art ………………173.1 Visual arts…………………………………………………………………173.2 Poetic and Music arts………………………………………………………18

3.3 Performing arts……………………………………………………………18

Chapter 4: The Thematic and Symbolic Aspects …………………………20

4.1 Critical realism……………………………………………………………20

4.1.1 Dialectical Marxism…………………………………………………….21

4.1.2 Morality and the Yoruba aesthetics…………………………………….22

4.2 Language and imagery…………………………………………………….24

4.2.1 Yoruba language influence……………………………………………...25

4.2.2 The symbolic of humane beings and natural elements………………….26

CONCLUSION..................................................................................................28

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………....31

INTRODUCTION

The history of Art has been entrenched with discriminatory assumptions

from the hegemonic Westerners critics regarding to what come to be called the

uncivilised societies such as African ones. The understanding one may have of

aesthetics from Western writers and philosophers such as Gobineau, Kant,

Hume, and Hegel seems to be valued as appropriate and applicable only to

Western culture. But, according to African intellectuals such the Senegalese poet

Leopold Sedar Senghor, these “Eurocentric scholars have drawn their theory

from the European aesthetics which is rooted from the remote Greek civilisation

characterized by a Hellenic rational philosophy named Logos”1. Besides, Black

people, who were stereotyped as ‘primitive beings’, are thought unable to

produce meaningful aesthetic artefacts. This is highlighted through these words

of the Senegalese Secretary General of the Biennale AFRIC’ART Ousseynou

Wade: “In the domain of visual art like in others, the quantifier African has a

negative connotation.”2

Nevertheless, in the purpose of deconstructing racist assessment about the

unknown Negro art, African American intellectuals from the Diaspora launched

the movement Black aesthetics renaissance. The origin of this latter trend can be

traced back in America where African slaves who were deported to work in the

Southern American plantations between the 15th and the late 18th century. After

the Civil War and the Reconstruction in 1880s, Black slaves who were

stereotyped as an uncultured and unrefined human being, succeed in gaining

more or less their social freedom. Despite the African American liberation from

1 Léopold Sedar Senghor. Liberté I, Négritude et Humanisme (Paris : Edition du Seuil, 1974), p.2.2 Mamadou Alpha Ndiaye & Alpha Amadou Sy. African Negro Aesthetics and the Quest for Universality (Dakar: Nouvelles du Sud, 2007), p.57.

works in the plantations, there is a yearn for cultural self- definition. In this

context, Black artists and intellectuals agreed on Black aesthetics rehabilitation

through the “African-American New Negro”3 movement created in 1925. This

Negro trend spread throughout the world thanks to prominent Black American

writers such as Langston Hugh, Toni Morrison, Claude Mc Kay and the like.

This Black aesthetics has influenced many postcolonial and postmodernist

African artists, particularly writers such as the Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, the

Nigerians Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and others. In fact, African

intellectuals, in order to counter colonial discourses and enhance Negro culture,

decide to readapt the Negro creed “Black Aesthetics” in African realities. In this

respect, the Senegalese poet Léopold Sedar Senghor coins in Liberté I,

Negritude et Humanisme “African Negro Aesthetics”4 which is an echo of the

Black aesthetic movement and whose main aim is to re-define and re-assess the

authenticity of African oral tradition. As for Soyinka, African Negro aesthetics

represented in Yoruba tradition through mainly “sacred Oriki (praise-chants)”5,

is very related to African philosophy. This latter which can be defined as Negro

metaphysic vision is generally performed through ritual dramatic materials such

as sculpture, painting, poetic arts and masquerade. However, these latter oral

tools started to be transmitted in literature through dramatic and novel forms by

African prominent writers.

Among post colonial writers one can cite the aforementioned Yoruba

writer Wole Soyinka. Born Akinwande Oluwale Soyinka in 1934, the artist and

an activist posits that writing and politics are interwoven. In fact, he painfully

realizes that, while resisting to colonialism new elites start where the departing

white colonialists had left off: the process of cultural assimilation and political

exploitation. Hence, he urges the African writers to become the conscience of

3 Alain Locke. The New Negro, Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992), p.150.4 Leopold Sedar Senghor, op. cit, p.25 Wole Soyinka. Myth, Literature and the African World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p.5.

their nations. In order to affirm his cultural self alienation and political

commitment he writes literary works such as the ritual dramatic work A Dance

of the Forests6 published in 1960 and the novel The Interpreters7 in 1965. In

fact, Soyinka literary output, generally, try to show the essential function of

Orature through the exploration of Yoruba mythology and its ritual drama. In

this respect, the interest of the survey is to describe the different traditional

artworks such as visual, poetic and performed used by Soyinka in A Dance of

the Forests and The Interpreters. Besides, the survey of these artistic devices

will permit to show social and political impact on either on the characters or the

audience.

In A Dance of the Forests, Soyinka depicts Yoruba belief which is

transmitted through ritual drama. For the Yoruba, the notion of space, time and

traditional themes are linked and is characterized through the coexistence of

past, present and future generation. Hence, Soyinka, in the play, mingles the

triplet notion of time (past, present and future) where each of the characters such

as Demoke, Rola and Adenebi, who uphold different social status, have to relive

their bad and good deeds with the enactment of ritual artworks such as poetry,

sculpture, masquerade, and the like. This religious process is echoed as one of

the concerns of the Yoruba traditional theory ‘Fourth stage’8 which, according to

Soyinka, can redeem the profaner and permits him to better master his

destructive and creative power. The performer’s resulting state of mind, after the

fourth space crossing, is the ability, for the characters, to control their binary

opposite force (destructive and creative) which is repetitive for all generations

and races. In the play, the conflict of the binary destructive and creative forces

of human beings is represented through the carver Demoke’s sin because of his

apprentice’s murder and his ability to save the Half-Child from Eshuoro’s hands,

the evil spirit. In the dramatic work, Soyinka questions African remote, present 6 . A Dance of the Forests (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963).7 . The Interpreters (London : André Deutsch, 1965).8 .op. cit. p.148.

and future obscenities through the interaction between Yoruba archetypal

mythic figures such as Ogun, the revolutionary and creative deity and human

community’s living people. For the playwright, it is through this ritual

enactment of self discovery that human being can be aware of his condition in

order to better face socio-political problems

The Interpreters is a satiric work about Nigeria postcolonial context

where traditional heritage and domestic policy are mismanaged due to

Colonialism influence. Indeed, Yoruba traditional morality is jeopardized by

new elites’ assimilation characterized by megalomania and corruption. In this

precarious socio-political context, the interpreters composed of Nigerian young

intellectuals try to make sense of their life. Hence, the characters Sekoni and

Kola, sculptor and painter, try to detached themselves from the unprogressed

Nigerian society through artworks confection. The skilful engineer Sekoni,

disappointed because he is judged by his corrupted staff unable to build the

station power of the village, turns to art particularly to sculpture, in order to

relieve his frustration symbolised by his frenzy wood masterpiece the

“Wrestler”. Besides, The Interpreters is the portrayal of a the experience of a

group of young Nigerian intellectuals who decide to detached from the ignorant

working class in order to interpret Nigerian social and political realities. Hence,

Soyinka considers the “The Wrestler” as an authentic African Negro aesthetic

artwork since it characterises the tragic and spiritual experiences of the character

Sekoni.

In this way, literary theories such as Marxism and Postmodernism

favoured an active political and cultural examination of the traditional role of the

artiste. The latter, as a socially involved being, has to produce literary works

critically reflecting or criticizing African community values and vices. Soyinka,

the postmodernist writer, uses his literary trend as narrative structure to examine

the binary opposite forces (Ogun’s destructive and creative forces). The latter

inner being is, according to Soyinka and the Yoruba traditional vision in general,

the result of traditional artworks enactment in ritual dramatic performance. In A

Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters, Soyinka makes use of

postmodernism which questions the principal of the authenticity of Yoruba ritual

drama and artworks.

The purpose of the study is to analyse African Negro Aesthetics features

and its social and political functions in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and

The Interpreters. Hence it will permit to arise questionings that constitute the

main parts of our survey. The first chapter is devoted to the review of literature.

In this part, a number of critical works are reconsidered in order to have a

general overview of what has already been written concerning our issue. The

second chapter will permit to display the archetypal characterisation of

Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters which are grounded on

Yoruba mythic vision. In the third chapter, we will examine the different Yoruba

artworks such as painting and sculpture, traditional poetry and performing arts

used by Soyinka as narrative techniques. Finally, the third chapter will analyse

the essential role of either the Yoruba artists or their ritual artworks and Yoruba

symbolism that Soyinka uses to in his literary works. The answers of those

interrogations will permit to determine African aesthetics similarities or

differences between Negritude and Tigritude trends. In fact, Soyinka as the

leader of this latter tendency, criticises the prominent “Messiah of Negritude

Senghor to not enough explore African Negro aesthetics”9 though he coins the

latter term. Besides, such a survey is an attempt to show the efficacy of African

Negro aesthetics through Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and The

Interpreters.

CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

9 Wole Soyinka.op. cit. p. 135.

This chapter is a panoramic view of what have been written about Wole

Soyinka and the representation of art in his writings. Many researches related to

our study have been conducted, ranging from essays, articles to book. The first

source Toward the Decolonization of African Literature, deals with the issue of

Soyinka hermetic and obscure traditional style. The particularity of Soyinka’s

way of writing is very symbolic regarding to African Negro aesthetics as far as

literary works is concerned. In fact, Soyinka has been accused of obscurantism

by some literary critics such as Onwuchekwa Jamie, Ihechukwu Madubuke, and

Chinweizu Ibekwe in the aforementioned critic work where Chinweizu traces

Soyinka’s obscurantism back to European literary norms. The Nigerian literary

critic asserts that:

Soyinka’s obscuritantism, however, would seem more readily explained in term of his fidelity to the Hopkinson butchery of English syntax and semantics, and to his deliberate choice of Shakespearean and other archaisms as models for his poetic diction 10

The critical work tackles the influence of Western literary aesthetics on

African literary works. The British cultural hegemony has had considerable

consequences on African languages, especially the pidgin and Yoruba diction. In

this context, many prominent traditional writers have been criticized of the fact

that they do not fully exploit indigenous languages or they only imitate the

European literary canon. That’s why Chinweizu, through his critical text,

criticizes Soyinka whom he classifies as a ‘euromodernist’11 writer, of imitating

too much European aesthetic devices in his literary works. In fact, according to

the Nigerian critic, Soyinka’s texts, embodying conscious message for the

illiterate Nigerian masses, can not be deciphered by these latter because of the

use of Western linguistic structure. 10 Chinweizu Ibekwe, “Criticism of African Poetry and Novel” in Toward the Decolonization of African Literature (London:Howard University Press, 1983), p.156.11 Ibid., p .172.

This critical text questions the originality of Soyinka’s style particularly

his use of language and imagery which are very important in the Negro aesthetic

domain. This point will allow an interrogation of the motives that urged the

rooted and committed Nigerian Yoruba writer, who most of the time, champion

the revival of African oral tradition, to use European literary techniques.

Chinweizu critical article “Criticism of African Poetry and Novel” which treats

of Soyinka’s style including language and imagery will help to review these

narrative techniques in relation to Yoruba poetic arts. Consequently, a critical

analysis of Soyinka’s use of Yoruba ritual drama through an “old-fashioned,

craggy…obscure and inaccessible diction”12 will be made.

However, Wole Soyinka, although writing in English language, uses

Yoruba language and imagery in A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters.

This work aims at analyzing the use of pidgin through traditional poetry which

will be dealt with in the second chapter. Parallel to, the Senegalese visual art

critics such as Mamadou A. Ndiaye and Alpha A. Sy have done much of

research about the universality of art. In respect with ideas developed in the

chapter “On the trajectory of universality”13 about the artist’s quest for

universality posits by Mamadou Ablaye Ndiaye and Alpha Amadou Sy in

African Negro Aesthetics and the Quest for Universality, Soyinka can be put in

this universal range of artist because the use of English language as a universal

mean of communication.

Contrary to ideas developed in Toward the Decolonization of African

Literature, many other critics have carried out important researches on Soyinka,

in the view of responding to the reader’s questions about Soyinka’s obscure

writing. That is the case of the Nigerian literary critic Niyi Osundare in “Word

of Iron, Sentence of Thunder: Soyinka’s prose style” where he analyses

Soyinka’s use of hermetic language which is a particular linguistic pattern of

12Chinweizu Ibekwe, op. cit, p.15913 Mamadou Alpha Ndiaye & Alpha Amadou Sy, op. cit, p.70

Yoruba tradition14. He examines the characteristics of Soyinka’s style as

modelled after “the Pantheon of god’s, and supernatural beings and archetypal

characters that people his work in recurring fashion”15. This quotation refers to

the diverse and complex characteristics of Soyinka’s style deriving from Yoruba

traditional symbolism and imagery.

The reflection of the Yoruba Pantheon in Soyinka’s works is illustrated in

the way he moulds archetypal characters as encompassing deities’

characteristics and behavior. In other words, characters’ tremendous social

experiences in A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters are paralleled to the

mythic tragedies of Yoruba deities, especially that of Ogun. Soyinka refers the

protagonists the most to the Prometheus sprit god Ogun. The latter is one of the

numerous gods which constitute the Yoruba pantheon where he seems to be the

most prominent. In their mythology, the Yoruba give him several attributes

among which we can mention the promethean spirit used by Soyinka in A Dance

of the Forests and The Interpreters. Osundare draws parallelism between some

of the deities and his characters which are employed as archetypal narrative

devices. Besides, Osundare deals with issue about the religious link between the

Yoruba divine figures and the human community. Soyinka posits that “the

reference to Yoruba gods is very essential in Yoruba religion”16 which is one of

the prominent aspect of African Negro Aesthetics.

In the same way, Leopold Sedar Senghor notices in Liberté I, Negritude et

Humanisme that “the Negro has established a rigorous hierarchy of Forces”17.

The Senegalese poet refers “Forces” to the supernatural beings such as the

Ancestors’ spirits that cohabit with living people. This literary work as an

14 Niyi Osundare. “Words of Iron, Sentence of Thunder: Soyinka’s Prose Style’ in African Literature Today Recent Trends in the Novel (London: Heinemann, 1983).15 Niyi Osundare. op. cit, p 716 Wole Soyinka. Myth, Literature and the African World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 122.17 Léopold Sedar Senghor. Liberté I, Négritude et Humanisme (Paris: Edition du Seuil, 1974, p .2.) [Le Négre a élablit une hierarchie rigoureuse de Forces] This is my own translation, this will be the case for the subsequent French quotations found in this work.

advantage combining the thematic as well as the aesthetic aspect of Soyinka’s

concerns dealt with in his novel. This is illustrated through the sacred belief of

the Yoruba human community regarding to the deities embodied by Soyinka’s

ritual traditional theory, the “Fourth stage”. The latter concern is manifested

literally through the Yoruba ritual enactment with traditional materials such as

songs, dance or carving and painting in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and

The Interpreters.

Moreover, the critic William Harris displays in “The Complexity of

Freedom” the Yoruba mythological issue through the belief of a “transition from

the human to the divine essence” 18 in Soyinka’s works. In other words, he

emphasizes the primal essence of human beings inspired from Yoruba

mythology. In fact, the literary critic wants to show Soyinka’s use of Yoruba

mythic figures through his archetypal characterization which is applied as

narrative device.

Harris’s arguments are relevant to our work because it permit to

understand the traditional hierarchy through the supernatural beings and living

people cohabitation which constitute one of African Negro Aesthetics’

backgrounds. Besides, he keeps on asserting that this traditional classification

will “prepare us for a Quest which is ‘part psychic, part intellectual grope”19.

Indeed, in Yoruba society, education and religion are interwoven with Nigerian

folklore through mythic aspect; hence, the importance of their application by

Wole Soyinka in A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters.

Our work will also spotlight on the traditional archetypal characterization

in Soyinka’s literary output. In relation with African Negro aesthetics,

characterization in Soyinka’s works is very suggestive in Yoruba traditional

folklore. In The Interpreters, the painter Kola tries to identify his friends with

18.Willson Harris. “ The Complexity of Freedom,” in Wole Soyinka an Appraisal (Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1994), p.26.19 Ibid., p.27.

the diverse ‘Orinsha’ (deities) in his pantheon. Through masquerade

performance in A Dance of the Forests, the characters soul communicates with

spirits which possesses their own soul, according to Soyinka. That’s why for

African, the question of beauty is not luxury or artificial artworks as they have

been conceived by Westerners, but is functional through its religious, communal

and committed implication.

Postmodernist fragmented style is bedrock in Soyinka’s literary works and

this is asserted by Femi Osofian through these words: “Soyinka’s aesthetics is

not just one uniform, monolithic thing, but quite a diversity of styles.”20In fact,

the fragmented way the events are narrated is the result of the influence of

Postmodernism. Applied to Yoruba cosmological beliefs, it consists of the

coexistence of the past, present and future time in Soyinka’s “transitional abyss” 21 where the characters have to cross for their redemption and their self-

realization which symbolizes Black consciousness.

The interest of Osofian’s article is it helps highlight the different

traditional narrative devices such as dance, dirge songs and masquerades used

by Soyinka and which will be treated in the framework of traditional artwork

forms. However, we opt for a deep analysis of Yoruba traditional visual, music,

poetic and performing arts in relation with their religious, communal and

committed aims, more detailed by Soyinka in the dramatic work A Dance of the

Forests.

Among the range of issues raised by the critical works on Soyinka, there

is one that grasps our attention. Indeed, Abdulrazak Gurnah has published

extensively on Wole Soyinka’s works. He deals with “The Fiction of Wole

Soyinka”22, particularly that of The Interpreters. In this paper, Gurnah analyses

20 Femi Osofian, “Wole Soyinka and a Living Dramatist” in The Writing of Wole Soyinka (London: Heinemann, 1988), p.53.21 Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature and the African World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 140.22 Abdulrazak Gurnah, op. cit, p. 74.

Soyinka’s use of satire and tragedy through the situation and role of the friends

who interpret the Nigerian society.

In other words, Gurnah wants to bring the reader within the postcolonial

literary setting which is marked by class struggle. His analysis has the advantage

of focusing the role of traditional artist regarding to Nigerian corrupted system;

if he will side with the grabber new elites or with oppressed masses. In The

Interpreters, this can be illustrated through these words of the character Sagoe

addressed to his friends Kola and Bandele:

The man says to me, you young men are always criticizing. You only criticize destructively, why don’t you put some concrete proposal, some scheme for improving the country in any way, and then you will see whether we take it up or not. (The Interpreters, 238)

Furthermore, Sekoni embodies Ogun-Will that is his impulse to create or

destruct. Like the Yoruba deity, his being is fragmented by the ordeals he

undergoes: the cancellation of the plant for the village, the spreading of his

history in the whole country, and his mental breakdown. But armed with his

will, which is impelled by his pilgrimage to Mecca, he reaches the stage of

creativeness in the carving of the wrestler.

Concisely, African literature, including oral literature has been a means

for African writers to examine and affirm African cultural values and to resist to

Eurocentric thread on African society. In fact, while European views of

literature often stress on separation of art and content, African one consider art

as conscious-writing. Black aesthetics is conveyed through oral literature by

means of mythic or historical texts, narrative epic, ritual verse and plastic arts

such as sculpture and painting in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and The

Interpreters. In Liberté I, Negritude et Humanisme Senghor confirms, in these

line, the authenticity and the re-awakening of African Negro aesthetics:

The Twenty century will remain that of African Negro civilization discovery. First of all, in Negro society, it was the sculpture that provoked scandal, then admiration. But, now on Europe began to discover, step by step, tales, poetry, music, painting, philosophy.23

23Léopold Sedar Senghor, op. cit, p. 202. [Le 20e siècle restera celui de la découverte de la Civilisation Négro-africaine. De l’Afrique Noire, ce fut d’abord la sculpture qui provoqua la stupeur, le scandale, puis l’admiration. Mais voici que l’Europe découvre, tour à tour, le conte, la poésie, la musique, la peinture, la philosophie]

CHAPTER 2: CHARACTERIZATION

This chapter reviews Soyinka’s use of African Negro aesthetics in his

literary output. Aesthetics, defined in The Columbia Encyclopedia, is a “subject

derived from philosophy dealing with the concern of art criterion and the way

that it would be interpreted.”24 In this respect, the Eurocentric depiction of black

aesthetics is not favorable to the way the Negro considered beauty. The first

wave of aestheticians, mainly composed of Westerners, did not describe Black

aesthetics as functional but as decorative. But, Soyinka deconstructs this

negative conception through the illustration of his traditional literary works such

as A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters.

Characterization, defined in The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

as “action or process of characterizing, especially the portrayals of human

characters in novels, plays...”25is used by Soyinka in relation with the Yoruba

notion of cosmology which is very important regarding to Yoruba view of the

world creation genesis. In this regard, Soyinka specifies:

The drama of the hero god is a convenient expression; gods they are identify by man as the role of an intermediary quester, an explorer into territories of ‘essence ideal’ around whose edges man fearfully skirts26

The characters in Soyinka’s literary works are traditionally conceived so

that to better makes the Africans, particularly the Yoruba, identify themselves

through characters’ behavior and characteristics. Among these characters we can

mention the god Ogun which is present both in A Dance of the Forests and The

interpreters. In this context, the playwright’s cosmic setting encompassing

characters and plot is divided into two worlds, according to Yoruba traditional

beliefs: the supernatural beings and the living people.24 The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2008) p. 4725 A.P. Cowie, The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Fourth Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p.147.26 Wole Soyinka. op. cit. p.1

2.1. The Yoruba Supernatural Beings

The African traditional religious figures are mainly composed of deities,

spirits and the Dead. However, Yoruba deities are more present in Soyinka’s

works through the most visible one that is Ogun, the Promethean god.

The most visible one representing the tragedy of the Yoruba Pantheon is

Ogun. In their mythology, the Yoruba give him several attributes; some of them

are present in A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters. In Yoruba

mythology, the gods and man were formerly separated by a void known as

“abyss of transition.”27 Ogun is the only god in the Pantheon who dares to

affront hostile forces in order to unite his fellow gods with man despite the

suffering awaiting him.

In The Interpreters, Ogun Promethean spirit is embodied by Sekoni; it is

impelled by his desire to construct infrastructures which will improve the lot of

his people. Sekoni upheavals against the cancellation of Ijioha village’s power

station by the corrupted boss. His frustration release is shown in the description

the narrator gives of the carving “The Wrestler”:

Taut sinews nearly agonizing in excess tension a bunched python caught at the instant of easing out, the balance of strangulation before release, it was all elasticity and strain. (The Interpreters, 99)

Besides, in A Dance of the Forests, there is character such as the carver

Demoke who incarnates Ogun’s revolting power through the carving of “araba

tree” (A Dance, 28), hence, Ogun stands for the god of the artists. The novel’s

27 Wole Soyinka. op. cit. p. 148.

and the play’s characters are one of the human community representatives in

Soyinka’s literary output.

2.2 The Living People

The authentic Negro artist has to experience the crossing of the “abyss of

transition”, which is Yoruba tragic and dramatic narrative technique in

Soyinka’s works, in order to transmit his resulting restless feeling through

artworks. In this context, the “abyss of transition” is bridged by the protagonists

in A Dance of the Forests like the carver Demoke.

A Dance of the Forests is ritual drama in that it combines issues as

conflict between the values of the old society and the new one and the role the

artist in relation to his traditional heritage. Thus for Soyinka, the Yoruba

incarnates particular deity’s power according it is creative or destructive.

Demoke, which power is endowed by the creative god Ogun, is aware of his

destructive power and is propelled toward redemption in Soyinka’s A Dance of

the Forests. Therefore, Demoke stands for the hope that Nigerian were

expecting to find solution to Nigerian sociopolitical hardships.

In The Interpreters, Egbo incarnates Ogun’s character mainly his darker

aspect. His personality is shaped in relation to the god’s violent nature and his

lack of compassion. This is illustrated by the sudden violence which takes holds

of him in the nightclub and which ends in a fight against a waiter (The

Interpreters, 219) and his repulsive behavior towards Joe Golder after Noah’s

death:

As from vileness below human imagining Egbo snatched his hand away, his face distorted with revulsion and a sense of the degrading contamination. He threw himself forward, away even from the back seat, staring into the sagging figure at the back as at some noxious insect, and he felt his entire body crawl in disgust. His hand

which had touched Joe Golder suddenly felt foreign to his body and he got out of the car and wiped it on grass dew.(The Interpreters, 236)

Supernatural beings and human community are therefore very meaningful

as oral tradition in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters. The

gulf which separates the deities and the living people represented through

Soyinka’s “abyss of transition” is expressed through elements of African Negro

aesthetics, especially the use of Yoruba ritual artworks as narrative devices.

Besides, the symbiosis of the world of the living and the supernatural as

techniques of characterization in the view of suggesting the political and social

upheavals in post independent Nigerian, but also of expressing hope for a better

future.

CHAPTER 3: THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF YORUBA TRADITIONAL

ART

In A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters, Soyinka does not limit

himself to these transcendental portrayals of characters. He depicts the diverse

traditional materials in respect with their different genres. The latter are mainly

composed of visual, poetic, music and performing arts.

3.1 Visual Arts

As it name suggests, visual arts are the whole artworks composed mainly

of sculpture and painting. One of the striking illustrations in A Dance of the

Forests and The Interpreters are Demoke and Sekoni’s carving and Kola’s

painting the Pantheon of Yoruba deities.

Through the use of visual arts as narrative devices in works, Soyinka

wants to show the socio-political commitment and religious functions of Yoruba

traditional arts. On the one hand, visual art is represented, in the play, through

Demoke’s totem which embodies Madame Tortoise’s vulgarity and obscenities

(A Dance, 28). On the other hand, Yoruba art forms have to symbolize “the

sublime aesthetic joy”28 which is pure expression of the artist’s sensuality while

crossing the “abyss of transition”. In other words, according to Soyinka,

Sekoni’s sculpture is more authentic regarding to Kola’s Pantheon in so far as

the latter does not express sensual feeling but is a parallelism of living people

and deities’ resemblances. Hence, Kola realizing he is not an artist, asserts: “I’m

not really an artist. I never set out to be one. But I understand the nature of art

and so I make an excellent teacher of art”. (The Interpreters, 227)

28 Wole Soyinka, op. cit, p.150

As visual arts, Soyinka adopts also Oral traditional devices such as poetic

and music arts as narrative techniques.

3.2 Poetic and Music Arts

Oral tradition is deeply marked by the poetic and music arts. These latter

including ritual songs and its instrumentals such as drums, flutes, are very

symbolic in African Negro aesthetics. Soyinka’s poetic language is testified in

The Interpreters through the language which Sekoni’s dreams are narrated (p.

26); it goes beyond reality to reach fantasy. In A Dance of the Forests, Soyinka

uses poetic and music arts such as Agboreko’s proverbs and The Dirge-man’s

poetic mourn. Poetic and music arts used as narrative devices by Soyinka,

embody Yoruba mythic beliefs such as the tragedy of the god Ogun and are

specified through these words: “Tragic music is an echo from that void; the

celebrant speaks, sings, and dances in authentic archetypal images from within

the abyss.”29

A Dance of the Forests constitute an example of Soyinka’s aforementioned

quotation. In fact, the ‘celebrant’ refers to the dirge man who sings and dances

for the welcoming of the Dead couple with the accompaniment of ‘music’

represented through the drum and flute’s rhythm in the second part of the play.

Visual and poetic arts are very recurrent in A Dance of the Forests and

The Interpreters, and their mixture enactment refers to performing arts.

3.3 Performing Arts

They can be defined as the merging performance of visual and poetic arts.

Dance, described as a waving sculpture in African culture can be classified in

this range of performing traditional art forms. In A Dance of the Forests,

Soyinka adopts Yoruba masquerade called “elgungun” as narrative device

29Wole Soyinka, op. cit, p. 148

through “mask –motif”30 of the three mortals such as Demoke, Rola, and

Adenebie “passivity state of mind” while they are reliving their past crimes (A

Dance, 63). However, the use of Soyinka’s performing arts dance is present in

The Interpreters. It is illustrated through the dancer in the night club who is

“Owolebi of the squelching orange” (The Interpreters, 122).

Oral tradition, mainly Yoruba traditional art is very recurrent in Soyinka’s

early works such as A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters. Yoruba

traditional art is composed of visual arts such as painting and sculpture; poetic

dirge and music arts, and performing arts mainly masquerade and dance.

However, these traditional artworks used by Soyinka as narrative devices

embody thematic and symbolic aspect related to Nigerian socio-political

realities.

30 William S. Haney II, ‘Soyinka’s Ritual Drama : Unity, Postmodernism, and the Mistake of the Intellect’ in Research in African Literature ( Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990), p.22

CHAPTER 4: THEMATIC AND SYMBOLIC ASPECTS

A last attempt in this study will constitute an evaluation of the main theme

and symbolism of Soyinka’s literary production which is entrenched in Yoruba

mythology and ritual drama. In fact, Soyinka’s way of approaching postcolonial

thematic is different from the socialist writers such as Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Alex

La Guma, hence the critic Steward Crehan asserts:

Soyinka has two main literary modes: the tragic and the satiric. His tragic drama and fiction, far from hypostatizing the “uncorrupted individual”, present us with a dialect in which self-realization can only be attained through the experience of disintegration, a journey into and through the “no man’s land of transition”, involving the “annihilation” or “distortion” of self.31

Hence, A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters are adopted as the “no

man’s land of transition” which the protagonists have to cross so that they may

change their socio-political condition.

Concerning, African Symbolism, it is very diverse in relation to the

characteristic of its specific ethnic group folklore and is differently conceived

from European symbolism. However, Soyinka has a particular use of these

literary components which are mainly applied in Nigerian postcolonial and

Yoruba traditional literary works. In the purpose to better cover thematic and

symbolic aspect, we are going first to analyze Dialectical Marxism

characteristics in A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters, then to display its

language and imagery.

4.1 Critical Realism

31 Stewart Crehan.  “ The Spirit of Negation in the Works of Soyinka” in Research in African Literature (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 16.

Critical Realism in Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters

is characterized through Dialectical Marxism and Yoruba aesthetic morality.

4.1.1Dialectical Marxism

As underlined in The Columbia Encyclopedia, dialectical Marxism,

known also as dialectical materialism, is:

A theory which basic tenets are that everything which material and change takes places through the “struggle of opposition”… Central to historical materialism is the belief that change takes place through the meeting of the two opposite forces (thesis and antithesis).32

However, Soyinka has a particular adoption of dialectical Marxism in A

Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters. In fact, in Soyinka’s work dialectical

materialism is “…less dialectical, more destructive in its contempt for those

elites and institutions to which the committed artist finds himself naturally

opposed.”33

Actually, instead of trying to trigger new projects of socio-economic

development for African nation, the new elites take benefit from the country’s

welfare. Consequently, there is a division of the social pattern into the ruling

class and the victims who are mainly composed of the working class.

Nevertheless, Black intellectual from the middle class is, more or less, the

suitable individual who would find solutions by making the masses aware of

their precarious social situation.

In The Interpreters, Soyinka’s satirical portrayal is the chairman of

Sekoni’s board (The Interpretres, 27). Hence, Sekoni’s dream, the settlement of

the station power in the village of Ijioha, ends in frustration because of the

cancellation of the project. 32 William Bridgewater and Seymour Kurtz. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Third Edition (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 568.33 Stewart Crehan. op. cit, p. 17.

As for A Dance of the Forests, Soyinka adopts dialectical materialism in

the historic perspective. In the play, dialectical Marxism is symbolized through

the confrontation between the monarchy symbolized by the King Mata Kharibu

and the Queen Madame Tortoise and their subjects characterized through the

Warrior. The corrupted Court Physician tries to reason the Captain who

confronts the King Mata Kharibu:

Physician: Was ever a man so bent on his own destruction…Warrior: Mata Kharibu is leader, not merely of soldiers but of men Let him turn the unnatural pattern of men always eating up one another (A Dance, 55-56)

The need to change conscious urges Soyinka to question inglorious

historical events which. It is illustrated by S. Haney through these words:

By reliving their previous incidents of their present crimes, the mortals (Demoke, Rola, and Adenebie) reveal the functioning of no changing pure consciousness that is the basis for historical change34

For Soyinka, the artists, represented through Demoke and Sekoni in A

Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters, have to take part to the struggle for

historical change.

By and large, Soyinka’s dialectical Marxism is more bent to the role of

the artist regarding to Nigerian postcolonial.

4.1.2 Morality and the Yoruba Aesthetics

Each culture is grounded in ethic values which “may be viewed either as

the standard of conduct that the individual has constructed for himself or as the

34 William S. Haney. “Soyinka’s Ritual Drama: Unity, Postmodernism, and the Mistake of the Intellect” in Research in African Literature ( Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 26.

body of obligation and duties which a particular society requires of its

members”35. In the postcolonial context, the new elites become more and more

immoral by corrupting the whole Nigerian social system. Socially, Western

culture, yet adopted by the African societies, dominates traditional teaching in

so far as the African is assimilated through the loss of his cultural heritage.

Hence, Soyinka analyses Yoruba mythology and ritual drama as able of

conveying and preserve Yoruba ethic values in A Dance of the Forests and The

Interpreters. However, myth, defined as “related to a particular civilization,

group of people, or to a religion and particularly Greek and Latin”36, though is

more closed to nature and the sacred, also encompasses moral values. That is

why, Soyinka posits that Yoruba gods’ tragedies, mainly Ogun’s one, “emerge

as the principal features of the drama of the gods; it is within their framework

that traditional society poses its social questions or formulates it moralities”37.

For the Yoruba playwright, Yoruba morality resides to the fact that living people

must diminish the gulf that exists between the “mystical”, referring to the

supernatural beings and the “mundane” which stands for human community. It

can be done only through the means of “sacrifices, the ritual, the ceremonies of

appeasement to those cosmic powers which lie guardian to the gulf”38. This hints

the theme of sacrifice which is present in Yoruba culture. In The Interpreters,

Sekoni’s death on a motor accident on the road can be considered as a sacrifice

to Ogun, also known as the god of the road for he can protect drivers against

accident. The ceremonies of appeasement is illustrated in A Dance of the

Forests, especially in Part Two, through the ritual welcoming for the Dead

couple which is performed with traditional arts such as dance, masquerade,

drums, flutes, and the like.

35 William Bridgewater and Seymour Kurtz. op. cit, p. 67436 Dictionnaire Encyclopedia ( Paris : Hachette, 1980), p. 865. [Ensemble des myths propres à une civilisation, à un peuple, à une religion, et particulièrement à l’antiquité gréco-latine.] Translation is mine37 Wole Soyinka, op. cit, p. 138 Ibid, p. 144.

One of the main preoccupations of African Negro aesthetics is to transmit

moral teaching to its collective social consciousness in order to ensure harmony

in society. This solidarity is illustrated through these words of Senghor: “Unity

through diversity”39.

Soyinka shows in his literary works the use of ritual drama pattern as a

portrayal of Yoruba social and religious morality. According to the Yoruba, the

“abyss of transition” embodied by the Promethean god Ogun permits the

individual conscious to be more aware of his cultural identity and to resist

Eurocentric cultural thread. In fact, Kola tries to fulfill his religious impulse

through the painting of Yoruba Pantheon in The Interpreters. As for Demoke, in

A Dance of the Forests, he regains his moral consciousness thanks to the ritual

process symbolized by the ‘transitional abyss’.

All in all, Soyinka posits Yoruba ritual performance as a mean of self-

identification and of resisting European cultural influence in A Dance of the

Forests and The Interpreters.

4.2 Language and Imagery

Like many African writers, Soyinka went abroad to further his studies. In

this atmosphere of discovery, he comes across Modernism. It (modernism)

sought to reinterpret traditional Catholic teaching in the light of 19 th century

philosophical, historical, and psychological theories and called for freedom of

conscience”40.

Language and imagery are concepts which are variously defined. In The

American Heritage, The Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary41, language is a

system of knowledge found in a social or cultural group of people including a

grammar and vocabulary that offer substantial communication among its users 39 Léopold Sedar Senghor. op. cit, p 4 [ L’unité dans la diversité ]40 Robert P. Gwinn et. al, The New Encyclopaedia, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1989), p.215. 41 The American Heritage, Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1987) p. 25

as well as vocal sound having symbols so as to shape, convey and communicate

thoughts and feeling. Concerning imagery, it is “the use of figurative language

to produce pictures in the mind of the readers as a group”42.

Among the particularities of Soyinka’s language, especially in A Dance of

the Forests and The Interpreters, are rhetorical devices such as compound,

similes, metaphors.

Compounds are generally known to be a combination of two or more

separate words. In the words of Niyi Osundare in “Words of Iron, Sentence of

Thunder: Soyinka prose style” in Soyinka’s works, they are of two kinds: simple

compound and multiple compounds43. Some are found in The interpreters as

shown in this example ‘Sit-down-strike’ (p. 76) and ‘Dum-belly-woman’ (p. 40)

in A Dance of the Forests.

Apart from compounds, Soyinka uses what Osundare calls “condensed or

indirect similes’44 . A simile is “a word or phrase that compares something to

something else, using the words like or as”45; this allows the creative write to

make an overt comparison. The following lines from The Interpreters and A

Dance of the Forests offer cases of condensed similes: “The beer reversed

direction and Lasunwon’s nostrils were [like] twin nozzles of a fireman’s hose”

(The Interpreters, 15). In the play, the example of condensed similes is

illustrated through this verse: “Rola: …I suppose you wouldn’t like to come and

lie with the/ Pack of dirty, [like the] yelling grandmas and fleatbitten children?

(A Dance, 6)

42 A.P Cowie. op. cit. p. 45043 Niyi Osundare, op. cit, p. 244 Ibid. p. 3045 Sally Wehmeier. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary(Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 294.

Metaphors are an integral part in Soyinka’s language. The metaphor is “a

rhetorical device which establishes the similarity of two unlikely things by

treating them as identical.”46

By and large, Soyinka’s literary works are often marked by the use of

indigenous languages mixed with English language style.

4.2. 1 Yoruba language Influence

The use of imagery is very specific in Soyinka’s works in so far as his

metaphors encompass images of his own mythology. That is why, his inserting

elements pertaining to Yoruba culture makes the non- Yoruba readers go to

great pains before grasping his ideas.

Concerning poetic language, it is only found in The Interpreters; it is also

present in his play A Dance of the Forests. It can play the role of proverbs as in

Agboreko’s advising the old man to be patient. In other word, the virtues of

patience are valued in this example:

The eye that looks down will certainly see the nose. The hand that deeps to the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail. The sky grows no grass but if the earth called her barren, it will drink no more milk. The foot of the snake is not split in two like a man’s, in hundreds like the centripede but if Ajere could dance patiently like the snake, he will uncoil the chain that leads into the dead…(A Dance, 29)

According to Omole47, Standard English is the basic language in which

The Interpreters is narrated. However, Soyinka often uses words or sentences

46 Steve Cohan and Linda M. Shires, Telling Stories: A Theorical Analysis of Narrative Fiction(London: Rouledge, 1991), p.27.47 James O. Omole. “Code-Switching in Soyinka’s The Interpreters” in The Language of Literature (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1998), p. 58.

pertaining to other language such as pidgin and Yoruba. The conversation of the

taxi-driver with Sagoe highlights the presence of pidgin in his language:

Taxi-driver: “Where you wan go for Obalende?

Sagoe: “To the police station”

Taxi-driver: “Oga mi, hm, so even Nigeria

Police no fit arrest this foolish rain”. (The Interpretres, 109)

There is also, in Soyinka’s works, the influence of Yoruba vocabulary

such as “Agidigbo” and “apala” which means a kind of Yoruba music.

Soyinka’s language can be studied through various stylistic aspects.

However, this should not prevent us from analyzing the impact of his cultural

symbolism on his language which is one African Negro aesthetic aspect.

4.2.2 The Symbolic of Human Beings and Natural Elements

For Western concept on symbolism, it can be defined as the “use of

symbols to represent things, especially in art and literature.”48However, African

Negro symbolism differs from European one in so far as the former does not

follow the Western logic. In fact, Negro symbolism, as asserted by Senghor, “…

does not mean what it represents, but what it suggests, what it creates.”49 From

this perspective, we can have an understanding of Soyinka’s symbolism which is

grounded on Yoruba folklore.

In A Dance of the Forests as in The Interpreters, the symbolic of human

beings is deeply rooted in Yoruba mythology. Among the examples of the

symbols in Soyinka’s works, there is human being such as Demoke in A Dance

of the Forests and Sekoni in The Interpreters. They are symbolic in so far as, in

Yoruba folklore, traditional artists uphold religious role. Concerning natural

element symbols used in Soyinka’s output, gods such as Ogun and its shrine like

48 A P Cowie, op. cit. p. 92449 Léopold Sedar Senghor, p 12 […ne signifie pas ce qu’il représente, mais ce qu’il suggère, ce qu’il crée.] 

“water”, “rock”, and “forests” are very recurrent in A Dance of the Forests and

The Interpreters.

All in all, Symbolism in Soyinka’s literary works is generally conveyed

through the symbolic of human being and natural elements which are much

grounded on Yoruba mythology.

CONCLUSION

This study has displayed the basis of Wole Soyinka’s commitment to

deconstruct negative stereotypical portrayals of African Negro aesthetics. He

alters considerations that perceive Black aesthetics as decorative and promote it

as playing essential roles. Subsequently, we become aware of some traditional

artworks depiction.

Those Yoruba traditional items reveal the use of authentic artistic material

as themes and narrative techniques. Those literary aesthetic devices, including

mainly archetypal characterization, Yoruba traditional art forms such as songs,

sculpture and painting are religious and political responses to racist Western

hegemonic culture and African new elite’s greediness. In this way, at the

traditional and the political levels, Soyinka has striven to deconstruct racist

Eurocentric thought regarding to African tradition in A Dance of the Forests and

The Interpreters. These literary works constitute striking symbols of Soyinka’s

Yoruba traditional themes and aesthetics.

Soyinka moves to retrieve and chant Yoruba culture in so far as his works

can be viewed through several aspects. In the aesthetic perspective, characters

such as Yoruba supernatural beings and the living people share the same

universe with the mediation of traditional aesthetics which play essential role

because it ensures social harmony. Such a social idealism shows the

effectiveness of Black aesthetics which is materialized through Yoruba tradition.

However, Soyinka emphasizes in A Dance of the Forests and The Interpreters

the essential presence of Yoruba artworks without which tragedy and drama

cannot be performed.

Yoruba artworks are depicted, in Soyinka’s literary works, through three

aesthetic categories such as visual, poetic and performed arts.

Visual arts composed of sculpture or carving and painting upholding a

sacred role are recurrently employed as narrative devices in A dance of the

Forests and The Interpreters. For Yoruba social hierarchy, the carver such as

Demoke and Sekoni in Soyinka’s works occupy considerable place since they

incarnate the spirits’ power. They are viewed as historical and religious

conservators. In fact, their sculptural artworks are considered as spiritual in

Yoruba traditional beliefs. Concerning the alleged European individualistic art

such as painting, Soyinka depicts it as capable to convey the collective

consciousness and the religious beliefs of one ethnic group as it is illustrated

through Kola’s Pantheon in The Interpreters.

Moreover, poetic arts are considered by the Yoruba playwright and

novelist Soyinka to be the core of African Negro aesthetics. In fact, Soyinka

uses poetic arts to portray Yoruba ritual drama. Music, which is materialized

through the traditional material drums, does not only convey melody as for

Western musical tools but emphasize on the Negro sensuality: the rhythm.

There are many cases of performed masquerades, in A Dance of the

Forests and The Interpreters, with basic artistic materials such as masks, music

and dance. In this context, the performer is no longer considered as a simple

living person but a spirit. Hence, Soyinka, in his novels and drama works, uses

“elgungun” (Yoruba masquerade) to show the religious importance of African

Negro tools.

All in all, through this survey, we have a deep insight in the traditional art

forms such as carving, painting, poetry and masquerade used as narrative

structure by the Yoruba writer in his writings. These traditional narrative

techniques are interwoven with the plot, which themes are grounded in Yoruba

world and Nigerian postcolonial context.

On the one hand, Soyinka uses art to awake black consciousness

regarding to their changing society under Western culture influence and to help

African renew with their cultural values. The Nigerian playwright has

relentlessly struggled against assimilation which goes with a disdain of tradition

conveyed through cultural values. Some of his characters face a dilemma,

having to choose between their ancestor’s heritage and the material values from

Western countries. However, Soyinka suggests responses to cultural dilemma

through the Yoruba theological principles, “Fourth stage” which can be

considered as a mean to struggle against cultural domination and the new

leaders’ greediness.

One the other hand, this study allows us to give ways out to postcolonial

concerns embodied by a corrupted ruling class and an illiterate working class. In

this context, the artist is expected to play the role of a critical analyst and

interpreter of the changing Nigerian society in order to find new solutions for

socio-political and cultural turmoil. Though Soyinka does not grant radical

responses to postcolonial threads as the Nigerian and South African writers

Chinua Achebe and Alex La Guma have done in their literary works, the Yoruba

playwright posits essentially African Negro aesthetics as a mean of resistance to

Western indoctrination.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.Primary sources

- Soyinka, Wole. A Dance of the Forests. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.

. The Interpreters. London: André Deutsh, 1965.

II. Other Works by Wole Soyinka

2.1 Novel

. Season of Amony. London Rex Collings, 1973.

2.2 Plays

. Kongi’s Harvest. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.

. Collected Plays Vol 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973

. Death and the King’s Horse Man. London: Methuen Drama, 1993.

2.3 Autobiography

. Aké-The years of Childhood. London: Rex Collings, 1983.

2.4 Essays

. Myth, Literature and the African World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

. Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essay on Literature and Culture. Ibadan: New Horn Press, 1988.

III.Secondary sources

-Adebayo, Williams. “Ritual and Political Unconscious: The Case of King’s Horseman”. Research in African Literature, Indiana: Indiana University Press, Spring. 1993. Vol.24, No. 1 -Chinweizu, Ibekwe, et al. Toward the Decolonization of African Literature London: Howard University Press, 1983.-Crehan, Stewart.  “The Spirit of Negation in the Works of Soyinka” in Research in African Literature (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990)- Gibbs, James. Critical perspectives on Wole Soyinka. London: Heinemann, 1981.- Haney, William S. “Soyinka’s Ritual Drama: Unity, Postmodernism, and the Mistake of the Intellect” in Research in African Literature Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1990.-Jones, Eldred Durosimi .The writing of Wole Soyinka. London: Heinemann, 1988. - , Eldred Durosimi & Eustace Palmer ed. African Literature Today Recent Trends in the Novel. London: Heinemann, 1983.

- Maduakor, Obi. Wole Soyinka: An Introduction to his writing. Ibadan: Heinemann, 1991.

-Maja-Pearce, Adewale.Wole Soyinka an Appraisal. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1994.-Ormole, James O. “Code-Switching in Soyinka’s The Interpreters” in The Language of Literature.Trenton: Africa World Press, 1998.

- Osundare,Niyi. “Word of Iron, Sentence of Thunder: Soyinka’s Prose Style” in African Literature Today Recent Trends in the Novel .London: Heinemann, 1983.

- Ndiaye, Mamadou Ablaye & Alpha Amadou Sy. African Negro Aesthetics and the Quest for Universality .Dakar: Nouvelles du Sud, Dakar, 2007.- Senghor, Leopold Sedar. Liberte I Vol 1, Negritude et Humanisme . Paris: Edition du Seuil, 1974. -Stewart, Danièle. Le Roman Africain Anglophone Depuis 1965 d’Achebe à Soyinka. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1988.

IV.General Works

-Barber, Karin. I Could Speak Until Tomorrow: Oriki, Woman and the Past in Yoruba Town. Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, 1992.-Beier, Ulli. The Origin of Life and Death: African Creation Myth. Heinemann: Heinemann Educationnel Books, 1966.-Cohan, Steve & Linda M. Shires, Telling Stories: A Theorical Analysis of Narrative Fiction.London: Rouledge, 1991.-Diop, Cheikh Anta. Antériorité des Civilisations Nègres: Mythes ou Vérités Historique? Dakar: Présence Africaine, 1993.- Finnegan, Ruth. Oral Literature in Africa. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1970. -Heywood, Christopher. Perspectives on African Literature. London: Heinemann, 1971.-Irele, Abiola. The African Experience in Literature and Ideology. London: Heinemann, 1981.-Locke, Alain. The New Negro, Voices of the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992.

V. Web Bibliography

-Mc Pheron, William. Stanford Presidential Lecture in the Humanities and Arts: Wole Soyinka. Stanford University, 1998 (http: // prelectur.standford.edu/lecturers/Soyinka/index.html). Accessed on 28-05-09.

-Uzoatu, Uzor Maxim. The Essential Soyinka (http: // african-writing. Com/seven/uzoruzoatu/html). Accessed on10-06-09.

VI.Reference Works

-The Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2008). -Wehmeier, Sally. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2000. -Gwinn, Robert P. et. Al, The New Encyclopaedia, Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1989.-The American Heritage, Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987-Bridgewater, William & Kurtz, Seymour. -Dictionnaire Encyclopedic, Paris : Hachette, 1980.

- The Columbia Encyclopedia, Third Edition .Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1963. .