This book presents a contour of the literary theories and critical approaches in modern African drama. Theories are discussed against the backdrop of modern African drama and include Symbolism, Naturalism, Nativism, the quest for Indigenous Aesthetics, Oral Narratives, Narratology, Marxism, Cultural Materialism, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Psycho-analytic criticism, New Historicism, Ecocriticism, Feminism, Postcolonialism and Intertextuality. The objective is to offer researchers and scholars of modern African drama a comprehensive approach of the discipline of African drama from theoretical perspective. Critical debates on the possibility of reading African drama with the lenses of contemporary literary theories have been controversial among critics of African literature. Some critics have been asserting that African drama should be theory-free in its intellectual and scholarly interpretation. Others opine that modern African drama should be analyzed within the mainstream of African literature alongside the novel and poetry. This book seeks to revert these views by pointing out the importance of theories in the interpretation and understanding of African drama.

Updated and enlarged, this groundbreaking collection surveys the major critical currents and approaches in drama, theater, and performance

Distinguished scholars analyze the plays, poetry, and prose of Wole Smoyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. Essays trace his career and place his work in the general context of African literature.

The goal of this book is to initiate theoretical discussions on the popular subject of African literary language, and the thrust of the contribution, apart from theory-building, is the introduction of the Post-indiginist concept next to the well known essentialist and hybrid concepts. The study outlines a set of criteria for each aesthetic concept, so that literary analysis based on the criteria will verify whether or not they are adequate for understanding, explaining and describing African writers' language usage. It is expected that a language aesthetic theory in the African context may help in the study of individual writers' styles and equally address a neglect of descriptive studies in African literary scholarship.

This is the first study to be entirely devoted to African literary drama in French, a major component of African theater. Beginning with a detailed analysis of its relationship to a variety of precolonial, but sometimes still contemporary, traditions of performance that constitute part of its roots, the author examines this drama in both its literary and theatrical dimensions. He discusses its development, themes and techniques up to and including contemporary theater. The book is divided into two sections: Part One offers a theoretical and historical background; Part Two analyzes key individual plays central to the repertoire, including two from the Caribbean. All quotations are translated into English.

The Black Arts Movement was sparked by the Civil Rights movement and the urge to produce and revitalize functional, realistic, and holistic symbols to express African American creativity. When Larry Neal began his quest for a new dramatic form to epitomize African American self-determination he laid the foundation upon which his friends and compatriots-Amiri Baraka and Charles Fuller-would build. Expressing their individual protests through their writings, these artists soon united in their attack against Eurocentrism, which traditionally minimized or neglected the roles played by Africans and African Americans on the world stage. Their writings signaled a radical change in the form and content of African American writing, particularly drama. In this insightful examination of African American cultural history, the author explores the heart of the dramatic imagination of African Americans during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. The analysis of the works of these three important dramatists reveals the roots of an Afrocentric approach to the theater, and introduces a new methodology for exploring Afrocentrism that is particularly suited to classes in African American drama and literature.ࠁ

Presents eight twentieth-century plays from seven African countries, along with explanatory notes and over thirty background writings and works of criticism.