The Influence Study Of European Theater Of Theabsurd On Wole Soyinka’s Plays

In this thesis, the author does a deeper research on the drama of Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka. The pupose of the thesis is to explore Soyinka’s absoption from the theater of the absurd in his dramas and his development on it. The author chooses Wole Soyinka’s The Road, and Madmen and Specialists as main plays and others as sauxiliary plays to analyze how his thoughts and skills are influenced by main representatives of that kind of drama, such as Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. What’s more, the author makes an analysis on Soyinka’s development on the theater of the absurd from the angle of theme, image, language, and action.The theater of the absurd, appeared in 1950 s in France and called as “Anti—drama” “Anti- literature” and “Avant-garde”, is based on the philosophy of Existentialism. Playwrights of the school create dramas to reflect men’s survival situation and mental state. No matter what Soyinka’s studying experiences or objective factors are, Soyinka has been influenced by this kind of drama. The author, therefore, adopts French school’s research methodology——Influence Study to do a research with detailed analysis. Soyinka borrows rhetoric techniques, such as symbol, metaphor, pun from the theater of the absurd, reflecting contemporary people’s survival condition and their mental state, to look for a reality in the absurd world and to express cultural values of the theater of the absurd. Soyinka, who has a wide perspective about world, puts a variety of cultural factors into his dramas, including his original traditional culture. There is no doubt that he has his own ingenuity and he establishes his unique artistic value, that is the guidance of existentialism ideology, the choice of writing techniques of the theater of the absurd, and absoption of Bertolt Brecht’s narrative dramas to realize his aim at educating, and enlightening the masses. Wole Soyinka chooses his own cultural and artistic view to present a broad vision showing his thoughts and cognition on life, society and world. It is helpful for people to have a clearer and more detailed understanding of Soyinka’s writing ideas, writing methods, his country’s political background and traditional culture through reading this thesis. Readers also can know his broad cultural vision and writing significance by an anlysis on his dramas.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction that briefly introduces the background of Wole Soyinka and research significance. In the second chapter, there are four parts: analysis of the current status of Wole Soyinka’s dramas to find out the thesis’ innovation points, French school’s influence study methodology in comparative literature, the influence of existentialist philosophy and the history of European theater of the absurd, all of which act as the theoretical foundation for thesis’ core chapter the third and the fourth chapter. In chapter three and chapter four, the author illustrates some related examples to support her opinions of Soyinka’s absorption from European theater of the absurd. Soyinka’s writing has its own originality, thus he forms his unique drama literature style and art value. A variety of cultural elements and his broad cultural vision make him as a shining jewel in drama history of Black Africa. In the final part, the author raises the significance of Soyinka’s theater of the absurd to push his drama thought and personality charm into a new peak.