Existential Complexities in Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests
| dc.contributor.author | Azumurana, S.O. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-10-08T10:24:09Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-10-08T10:24:09Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2014 | |
| dc.description | Scholarly article | |
| dc.description.abstract | Human existence and its relationship to the cosmos, both physical and terrestrial, has been a subject of vigorous debate. In this paper, I see Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests as an artistic and imaginative intervention in the debate. In this regard, I analyze the play as an imaginative exploration of the existential complexities of the human race. Even though most critics appear to constrict the play’s worldview and its attendant message just to the socio-political situation in Nigeria, I extend the discussion and contend that the play’s localized worldview is a microcosm of its universalizing perspective. Secondly, as against the reading of critics such as that of Obi Maduakor that the play “is one of the first works to establish Soyinka’s reputation as a moralist” (186), I believe that, on the contrary, he (Soyinka) refuses to make simple moral judgments or to resolve his dramatic action. Using Lois Tyson’s categorization of a complex phenomenon as one that is paradoxical, ironic, ambiguous, and tension oriented, especially in relation to opposing tendencies, I argue that Soyinka’s message in this play is that the seeming polarities between freedom and liberation, good and evil, morality and immorality are relative and not easily defined | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Azumurana, S.O. (2014) “Existential Complexities in Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests” Ihafa (Journal of African Studies published by the Department of Linguistics, African and Asian Studies, University of Lagos. Vol. 6, No. 1. pp. 27 – 46. | |
| dc.identifier.issn | 1117-5257 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://submissions.scholasticahq.com/api/v1/attachments/338/download&ved=2ahUKEwiPpPCzuv6IAxVCUkEAHUy8BvMQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0T7q5knfjoSsMuIGb5BJ4- | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://ir.unilag.edu.ng/handle/123456789/12996 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | Ihafa Journal of African Studies; 6(1) | |
| dc.title | Existential Complexities in Wole Soyinka’s A Dance of the Forests | |
| dc.type | Article |