Cultural Nationalism in William Butler Yeats’s Dierdre (1907) and Wole Soyinka’s Death and King’s Horseman (1973)
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Date
2021
Authors
Mebrek Sylia
Mohellebi Tassadit
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mouloud Mammeri University
Abstract
The present research paper explores the issue of cultural Nationalism in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman (1975) and William Butler Yeats's Dierdre (1907). Throughout our investigation, we have tried to discuss some concepts related to cultural nationalism as it is theorized by Benedict Anderson in his famous work Imagined Communities (1983). We have also discussed how Soyinka and Yeats have portrayed their respective cultural identities, traditions, and beliefs in their respective works. Therefore, our major concern consisted of analyzing and comparing methods adopted by the two nationalist playwrights to support and maintain their nations.
To achieve our purpose, we divided the work into two chapters. The first chapter is concerned with establishing considerable areas of comparison between the two plays relying on Anderson's concepts of Nationalism including language, religion, beliefs, traditions and sacrifices. Actually, both Wole Soyinka and William Butler Yeats employed their cultural icons to promote people’s national consciousness and their sense of belonging. And the second one was about myths and cultural memory as they are introduced in the literary works
Description
56p. ; 30cm(+CD-Rom)
Keywords
Cultural Nationalism, identity, beliefs, traditions, nation, nationalism, rituals and celebrations, Irish literature, African literature
Citation
Literature and Civilization