The Sacrificial Foundation of Modernity in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9250679 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Topper Topper (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 53 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Research in African Literatures (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-5210 • E-ISSN: 1527-2044 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/reseafrilite.50.1.04 |
| OpenAlex | W2950504798 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 17 |
Critics largely interpret Death and the King's Horseman as a representation of a particular cultural trauma: African secularization under colonial modernity. If, however, the nation-state presupposes a political theology, then colonization is not secularization, but a transition into a new order of the sacred. I argue that Horseman stages this process as a cosmological trauma emerging through a transfiguration of sacrifice. As an indigenous death rite transfigures into an imperial possession rite, incarnating the political theology of colonized life, the cyclic time of Yoruba cosmology assumed within the drama becomes entangled in the sequential time of colonial modernity. Beyond representing this trauma, Horseman ritualizes it, providing a passage into modernity by aesthetically mediating that which it laments and, moreover, offering a new vision of community. This process bears implications exceeding Horseman criticism, addressing the discourses of biopolitics, political theology, cultural trauma theory, postcolonial studies, and tragic theory
Art · Colonialism · Drama · Literature · Modernity · Political science · Political theology · Politics · Secularization · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · South Asian Cinema and Culture · Theatre and Performance Studies
Yoruba Ritual
The death of tragedy.
Myth, literature and the African world
Wole Soyinka
Black Skin, White Masks
Okonkwo, Textual Closure, Colonial Conquest
Yoruba
Violence and the Sacred
The origin of German tragic drama
Ritual as the Medium
Terms of the Political
Reflections
From Max Weber
Specters of Marx
Wole Soyinka and Modern Tragedy
Art, Dialogue and Outrage
Dialectic of Enlightenment
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |