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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The image of Sàngó in Duro Ladipo's plays |
Author: | Ogúndèjì, Philip Adédótun |
Year: | 1998 |
Periodical: | Research in African Literatures |
Volume: | 29 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 56-75 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Nigeria |
Subjects: | African religions cults Yoruba drama literature |
About person: | Duro Ladipo (1926-1978) |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820722 |
Abstract: | Duro Ladipo's fame as .Sàngó does not derive from any traditional activity but from his exciting dramatic presentation on stage of the Yorùbá god of thunder's character as a turbulent deity with magical powers. The plays that feature .Sàngó and on which the present article focuses are '.Oba kò so', 'Ò.sun', and '.Obàtálá'. They are considered a trilogy because each one presents one aspect of .Sàngó's character: the pristine or mythical, the historically deified, and the literary .Sàngó. The present author argues that there is today a rather dialectical relationship among the three in Nigeria. Ladip.o has created the literary .Sàngó out of the written and unwritten sources available to him about the mythical and historical .Sàngó in his trilogy. The author's analytical tool is semiotics, and though the analysis is literary in orientation, the preference, informed partly by the popular nature of the dramatic tradition within which Ladip.o's plays are located, does not neglect the theatrical mechanics. Identificatory (physical) and behavioural (innate) features in which .Sàngó is codified are examined individually before the three plays are considered under a general reexamination of views on the mythical, historical, and literary types of .Sàngó. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |