Wole Soyinka: Cultural encounters and death and the king’s horseman
Keywords:
African literature, Yoruba, cultural encountersAbstract
Wole Soyinka: La rencontre des civilisations, La Mort et l'écuyer du roi*. L’article est consacré à l’un des drames les plus controversés de Wole Soyinka, La mort et l'écuyer du roi, mis sous le jour de ses textes critiques précoces ayant trait à la littérature africaine. La mort et l'écuyer du roi a connu une rude critique de la part de différents critiques africains pour sa langue par trop intellectuelle et pour sa complaisance excessive en tradition d’écriture européenne. Toutefois, il faut d’abord comprendre l’approche théorique que Soyinka pratiquait vis-à-vis de la littérature affricaine, afin de pouvoir saisir les fondations de sa méthode d’écrire. Son mélange spécifique d’influences variées, depuis les chants d’éloge et d’une langue métaphorique propres à I’orature d’Yoruba, passant par les pièces shakespeariennes et la tradition du drame grec, est présenté ici comme un choix fait en toute conscience par un écrivain ayant atteint sa maturité et par un théoricien de la littérature dsposant des connaissances immenses. Des travaux précoces de Soyinka discutaient de différentes méthodes d’écrire pratiquées par une génération dite « première » d’écrivains africains, ce qui nous permet de dépister les motifs qui se dessinent derrière ses propres
choix littéraires.
* édition française: Wole Soyinka, La Mort et l'écuyer du roi, Hatier International, Paris 2002, coll. Monde Noir
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