• Ritualization as pragmatic deployment of revolutionary consciousness in the drama of Femi Osofisan

    Author(s):
    Adewale Bankole Ajayi (see profile)
    Date:
    2012
    Group(s):
    GS Drama and Performance, GS Folklore, Myth, and Fairy Tale, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society, LLC African American, LLC African to 1990
    Subject(s):
    African literature, Marxian school of sociology, Mythology, Aesthetics
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    marxian aesthetics, myth, ritual, social change, the mimetic, Literary criticism, Marxist sociology
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6V243
    Abstract:
    Early works of dramatic criticism seeking to draw parallels between ritual and drama in Africa concentrated on examining the dramatic characteristics of ritual to see how drama evolved from ritual. However, a closer application of the theories of Girard, Schechner, Smith, Hubert Mauss and Turner reveal new perspectives on the interaction between the related phenomena of drama and ritual. Precisely, in the works of Femi Osofisan, the drama of the revolution seeking social change meets with the mimetic in ritual which is seeking to re-establish cosmic order. The researcher in this paper sets out to investigate Femi Osofisan's blend of ritual and myth with revolutionary aesthetics and themes in two plays, Once Upon Four Robbers and Esu and the vagabond Minstrels. In the work, it is revealed that the playwright shows the materialistic push for wealth as a rough, immoral fight that forbids altruism and leads to desperation in seeking wealth. It comes to the fore that wealth when pursued this way remains elusive. He then seeks for a change in the socio-economic arrangement that makes people to unleash their efforts in a mindless, self-centered pursuit of material gain to the detriment of all. The way Femi Osofisan addresses this contemporary theme with a blend of Marxian aesthetics with myth and ritual is the focus of this paper.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    University of Maiduguri
    Pub. Date:
    2012
    Book Title:
    Language, literature and culture: Festschrift in honour of Prof Abdulhamid Abubakar
    Author/Editor:
    M Munkaila & B. Zulgadaini (Eds.)
    Chapter:
    Chapter Thirty Three
    Page Range:
    354 - 369
    ISBN:
    978 283 852 7
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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