Theses and Dissertations

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Theses and Dissertations (Department of English)

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Nature in Soyinka's Poetry: The Primary of Essence.
(Obafemi Awolowo University, 1987) Adekoya, Olusegun Adesina; Biodun, Jeyifo
The central idea of this dissertation is that Nature is portrayed in Soyinka is poetry in essentialist terms as a paradox. The dissertation begins with a review of the criticism of Soyinka's poetry and goes on to an examination of Soyinka's theoretical and critical essays through which the specific nature his poetics is garnered- a mythopoeia. This is followed by an examination of Soyinka's published volumes of poetry. Idanre and Other poems embodies the twin principle of creation and destruction, with the tragic aspect being more dominant, A Shuttle in the Crypt is an extension of the idea of the prevalence of evil in human nature to the problems of a strife-torn between 1967 and 1970. Ogun Abibiman demonstrates the permanence of change in nature and history. The thesis then goes on to compare Soyinka and Negritude, on the one hand, and Soyinka and British Romanticism, on the other, primarily on the basis of their attitudes to nature, and the personal, historical and cultural factors which underlie the affinities and differences discoverable between Soyinka and these literary movements. The conclusion, a gathering of the salient points of the preceding chapters, draws attention to the cultural concepts and themes that Soyinka has derived from nature: paradox and ambiguity; wholeness and continuity.