Death and the King's Horseman

by Soyinka, Wole

• ISBN13: 9780413333605
• ISBN10: 0413333604
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: A & C Black

Summary

"This play, by the winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature, asks: 'On the authority of what gods' the white aliens rupture the world. It puts exciting political theatre back on the agenda. . . a masterpiece of 20th century drama" (Guardian)Elesin Oba, the King's Horseman, has a single destiny. When the King dies, he must commit ritual suicide and lead his King's favourite horse and dog through the passage to the world of the ancestors. A British Colonial Officer, Pilkings, intervenes to prevent the death and arrests Elesin. The play is a set text for NEAB GCSE, NEAB A Level and NEAB A/S Level."A transfixing work of modern world drama" (Independent); "clearly a masterpiece. . . he achieves the full impact of Greek tragedy" (Irving Wardle, Independent on Sunday); "the action of the play is as inevitable and eloquent as in Antigone: a clash of values and cultures so fundamental that tragedy issues: a tragedy for each individual, each tribe" (Michael Schmidt, Daily Telegraph)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Acknowledgments
The Text of Death and the King's Horseman	p. 1
Map of Yorubaland	p. 66
The Yoruba World	p. 67
Oba Waja (The King Is Dead)	p. 74
Theatre in African Traditional Cultures: Survival Patterns	p. 89
Wole Soyinka and the Myth of an African World	p. 103
Soyinka's New Play	p. 113
Death and the King's Horseman in the Classroom	p. 115
Wole Soyinka's 'Death and the King's Horseman,' Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester	p. 121
Mediation in Soyinka: The Case of the King's Horseman	p. 141
Death and the King's Horseman	p. 151
Being, the Will, and the Semantics of Death	p. 155
Ideology and Tragedy	p. 164
Elesin Oba and the Critics	p. 172
Ritual Closure in Death and the King's Horseman	p. 177
Ritual and the Political Unconscious: The Case of Death and the King's Horseman	p. 187
Death and the King's Horseman and the Masks of Language	p. 196
Tragedy, Mimicry, and "The African World"	p. 207
Wole Soyinka: A Chronology	p. 223
Selected Bibliography	p. 227
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