Politics And Aesthetics In Selected Plays Of Wole Soyinka

This study has been embarked upon to present the politics and aesthetics in selected plays of Wole Soyinka paying much attention to his The Beatification of Area Boy and Kongi’s Harvest. The study has been able to extract and discuss the ways in which Wole Soyinka applied cultural artifacts to political issues to depict the happenings in his immediate society. The sociological approach has been used in respect to the Marxist theory. The study has conclusively pointed to the fact that the society can only be changed positively if everyone is ready to make huge sacrifices to realize positive changes.  

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

According to Leftwich (1983) politics consists of all the activities of cooperation and conflict within and between societies, whereby the human species go about obtaining, using, producing and distributing resources in the course of the production and reproduction of its social and political life.

Politics in this sense therefore enables the writer to examine the problems which occur within or between societies, institutions or groups, whether it is unemployment, war, famine, disease, overcrowding or various forms of conflict. Writers are members of the society and they make it a point of duty to write on all these political problems in the Society and suggest viable solutions to these problems.

Politics as can be defined by the Webster’s dictionary is the art and science of the government of a state opinions, principles or policies by which a person orders his participation in such affairs.

Aesthetics can also be defined as the formal study of art especially relating to the enjoyment or study of beauty. The term aesthetics can also be defined as the description of an object or a work of art that shows great beauty. 

Geoffrey Poton also throws light on what the concept of politics is. He opines that politics is the way in which we understand and order our social affairs especially in relation to the allocation of scarce resources, the principle underlying this, and the means by which some people or groups acquire and maintain a greater control over the situation than others. Going by this definition, one sees that politics is above all a social activity that is concerned with people’s social and material relationships. It is varied in expression in different spatial areas and continually changing through time.

Therefore writers employ the concept of politics as part of the models or mental framework through which the writer interpret and try to understand their environment and world around them. Aesthetics is concerned with the beauty, arts, and the understanding of beautiful things.

 Politics and aesthetics in selected plays of Wole Soyinka can be viewed can be viewed to be the ways and tools Soyinka uses to beautify the plays in relation to political issues in each play.

Every writer exists within a society and as a member of such society, he preoccupies himself with issues that arise within it.

The purpose of this study is to examine the way wole Soyinka applied cultural artifacts to political issues to depict the happenings in his immediate society. This project will evaluate and underscore the ways in which political issues are exemplified in the plays.