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This book discusses the new roles assigned to oral traditions in the works of contemporary playwrights, and asserts that these oral materials, though old, have enduring vitality and relevance for modern-day society. By looking at the African cultural matrix of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, this book presents a study of the strategies frequently adopted by contemporary Nigerian playwrights to preserve folkloric materials in their creative works and examines how these writers manipulate different forms of oral tradition to bring cultural and social vision to bear in their dramaturgy.
List of contents
.- Introduction.- Section I: Reconfiguration of Cultural Traditions & History.- 1. Onomastic Strategies: Names and Naming of Characters.- 2. Myth, Legend, and Poetics of Heroism in ba Kòso and Sàngó.- 3. History and the Dramatists: The Reenactment of the Nineteenth Century Yoruba Ijaye War in la Rotimi s Kurunmi and Wale Oguny mi s Ijaye.- Section II: Echoes of Oral Poetic Genres.- 4. Old Wisdom, New Role: Proverbs in Akinwumi Is la s Madam Tinubu: Terror in Lagos.- 5. The Art of Praise Singing (Oríkì) in Modern Drama.- 6. Reconfiguration of Folk songs in the Dramaturgy of Akinwumi Is la, W le Soyinka, and F mi s fisan.- Section III: Orality and Aesthetic Transfer in Video Films.- 7. Ifá Divination Motif in Yoruba Video Films.- 8. Orature, Aesthetic Transfer, and Social Vision in Saworoid and Agogo Èèw .
About the author
Akintunde Akinyemi
is Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Florida, Gainesville, USA.
Summary
This book discusses the new roles assigned to oral traditions in the works of contemporary playwrights, and asserts that these oral materials, though old, have enduring vitality and relevance for modern-day society. By looking at the African cultural matrix of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, this book presents a study of the strategies frequently adopted by contemporary Nigerian playwrights to preserve folkloric materials in their creative works and examines how these writers manipulate different forms of oral tradition to bring cultural and social vision to bear in their dramaturgy.
