Soyinka, Baraka, Wilson: The Ogunian archetype (Wole Soyinka, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson)

This dissertation examines the artistic manifestations of the Yoruba god of iron and war, Ogun, in Wole Soyinka's The Strong Breed, A Dance of the Forests, and The Road; Amiri Baraka's Dutchman and The Slave; and August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Using the Yoruba concept of Tragedy as articulated by Soyinka, this study analyses the selected plays for insights into their underlying themes, philosophies, and interconnectedness.; Guided by an African-centered framework of analysis, the study reviews the weakness of the Aristotelian approach to the study of drama on a universal level, and explicates the common African cultural heritage which these playwrights share and forcefully express in their works. The study reveals that elements of traditional African culture can provide both continental and diasporan African playwrights with valuable and inspirational material for dramatic creation. The expression of the Ogunian principle of destruction-reconstruction and other aspects of the archetype in the works of August Wilson and Amid Baraka display profound awareness of their cultural link to a longer history that ties them to the African continent. This awareness has led them to incorporate in their plays values and cosmologies which they share with Wole Soyinka as well as with all people of African descent. Their works, then, may be properly understood as celebrations of the vitality and resilience of Pan-African aesthetics.