Browsing by Author "Afolayan, Kayode Niyi"
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Item Akachi- Adimora Ezeigbo’s Dancing Masks and “Snail Sense”: A Postcolonial Reading(The Faculty of Arts, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba- Akoko, 2019) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe paper looks at issues of nationhood and gender and the commitment of female writers in Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, to intervene through their works. There is a meeting point between theory and the art in the sense that the author evaluates Ezeigbo's theory of 'snail sense feminism through one of her poetry collections. The conclusion of the paper credits Ezeigbe's objective assessment of the social maladies in her poetry but raises questions on the practicability of the nature of negotiation mooted by the poet and theoristItem Common Errors in English. In Basic Communication Skills for Students of Science and Humanities(The Department of English, University of Ilorin, 2015) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiLanguage, in general terms, is always seen as a means of communication. Although in language use communication can be facilitated through signs and symbols, the spoken and written forms remain the two basic ways of communication. This article looks at the two basic ways of communication and draws the distinction between them which lies in the expertise of the reader or speaker of the language.Item Cry from the Fringe of Hope: A Study of Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s Heartsongs and Waiting for Dawn(The Department of English, Gombe State University, Gombe, 2011) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiArguably, gender considerations have become one of those distinctions that shore up sentiments in literary criticism. In Nigeria, with the 'infiltration' on the poetry scene by female writers like Promise Okekwe, Maria Ajima, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo and a few others, an interesting dimension that is bringing great challenges to both writers and critics of Nigerian poetry is being enacted. This paper, through Akachi Adimora- Ezeigbo's Heartsongs (2009) and Waiting for Dawn (2010), assesses the creative vision of Nigerian female poets. The writer discovers that the poet sustains the outbursts against gender oppression but her social consciousness, demonstrated by an exhibition of a passion which is galvanised by her transference of historical facts into poetry, is quite overbearing. The conclusion of the paper challenges the poet's impression of hope but credits her ingenuity at charting a new course that could check gender deprivations and foster national rebirth.Item Dystopia in Transcultural Settings: Soyinka’s Beatification of Area Boy: A Lagosian Kaleidoscope(Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Calabar, 2018-05) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe paper focuses on Wole Soyinka's Beatification of Area Boy: A Lagos Kaleidoscope (1995) and engages the playwright's excursion into multicultural settings where there are issues of disfunction in the postcolonial space. The conclusion of the paper is that Soyinka's association with the hybrid space brings to the fore the a multidimensional approach in the negotiation for utopia in the hybridized postcolonial spaceItem Earth in the Poetry of Niyi Osundare(Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC), Lagos, 2012) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe quest to make the world a better place to live in has always been the common concern of all disciplines. However, despite the plethora of efforts which focus on man’s survival in his environment, the currency of manifestations and use of terms like ‘tsunami’, ‘acid rain’, ‘earth quake’, ‘depletion of the ozone layer’, ‘oil spill’, ‘land slide’ and, of recent, ‘climate change’ underscore the fact that our earth is becoming more dangerous to inhabit. This paper, using the poetry of Niyi Osundare as guide, showcases the dual allegiance of literature to the discourse that bothers on climate change, culture and the earth. The first hinges on the use of nature tropes to mediate on social issues while the latter seeks to mend the ruptured relationship between man and the earth, his primordial and eternal host. The paper establishes that man in destroying nature is destroying himself and that conscious efforts must be made by man to keep the sanctity of the relationships between fellow men and nature.Item Folklore and Contemporary Realities in Death and the King’s Horseman and Death, Not A Redeemer(Houston, USA: Published by African Diaspora Press, 2015) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe benefits of folklore to African playwrights have been very immense. From what began like mere statements of aesthetics, contemporary African playwrights have gone to seek the relevance of primordial forms to the challenges of their societies. This essay contemporizes Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (1975) and Hope Eghagha’s Death, not A Redeemer (1998) within these tensions that raise questions on the validity of cultural modes and the needs for mediation. The writer identifies the inevitable negative impacts of contact on cultural stasis and, chronicling the lodes of contemporary challenges of African states as typified in Eghagha’s play, asserts the expediency of re-invention.Item Folklore and Social Mediation in Olu Obafemi’s Illuminations: Songs Dance from the Belly of Time(Department of Modern European Languages and Linguistics, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto., 2015) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiNo history of the evolution of literary forms in all cultures is complete without recourse to folklore. For Africa, the navigation of folklore into written forms has created a dual challenge which, on the one hand, has to do with the laundering of aesthetics, and on the other hand, the deployment of folklore in the interrogation of the dilemmas in the African space. This paper, using Olu Obafemi's poetry demonstrates that in seeking for a rebirth of the African folklore, writers must continue to exhibit its relevance in the contemporary space.Item Gender Issues and Social Crossings in Maria Ajima’s Cycles and Thri…ll(Kraft Books, Ibadan, 2012) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe paper looks at issues concerning the rights of women mirrored by Maria Ajima in her poetry. Given the circumstances which includes the lethargic approach of women themselves, that a lot still needs to be desired if women's rights would be actualized in Africa.Item Literature: Meaning, Aspects and Forms- A Nigerian and African Perspective(Department of General Studies, Landmark University, 2017) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe article examines the meaning of literature, its forms and genres with peculiar references. perspectives are drawn from the Nigerian and African milieuItem Madiba: Between Dialectics of Alienation and the Praxes of Social Reformation(The Department of English and Literature, University of Benin, 2013) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe space occupied by South African literature has always been valued within the matrix of historical experience. One of the perspectives that give attention to this is the categorization of engagements in Theory of African Literature (1989) where Chidi Amuta delienates between radical and liberal sentiments in the creative impulses the exhibited the ordeals of the apartheid era. This paper, against the background of the crisis of leadership in Nigeria takes into account the contemporary global relevance of the South African experience by bringing into focus titles like Wole Soyinka's Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela's Earth and other Poems (1989), John Pepper Clark's Mandela and Other poems (1988), Ogaga Ifowodo's Madiba (2003) and Sam Omatseye's Madela's bones and Other poems (2009), The writer's conclusion, in this re-appraisal of the Mandela experience, raises questions that seek antidote to social crises beyond the borders of leadershipItem Morality and the Burden of Change: Between Ayi Kwei Armah, Chinua Achebe Chukwuemeka Ike(2016) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe paper looks at the personal and collective experiences of the novelists studied in relations to the negative conditions in the spaces they have mirrored. The conclusion of the paper places emphasis on the need for synthesis between ideology and morality in the quest for nation buildingItem Myth and Social consciousness in Wole Soyinka's Alapata Apata(2021-06-30) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe study of myths, its relevance and importance, has always generated interests among scholars over the ages. After the initial engagements before the twentieth century when most interventions, from scholars like Xenophanes, Plato and Euhemereus pronounced myths as intangible, many writers today have continued to use myth as anchor of their works. In Africa, writers, like Wole Soyinka, have deployed myths in the interrogation of crises in the postcolonial space. After his seminal essay, Myth, Literature and the African World (1992), which laid out the essences of primordial forms in his Yoruba tradition, Soyinka has continued to deploy the capacities of those primordial ‘literary” forms, particularly Ogun, in his interrogation and interventions on diverse conditions on the African landscape.Item Mythology, Aesthetics and Social Vision in Wole Soyinka’s Idanre(Department of The Performing Arts, University of Ilorin, 2010-04) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiWole Soyinka's production of Idanre and Other Poems (1967) for the Commonwealth Arts festival had diverse impacts on the evolving trend in modern African poetry. The poet offered an alternative to the 'narcissist' ideology of the negritude movement that subsisted and also demonstrated that folklore could be used as anchor for visionary ideals. At the centre of Soyinka's mimesis is the Ogun myth which has continued to feature in the works of the poet. This paper, apart from appreciating Wole Soyinka's aesthetic values, also looks at the fundamental statements made by Soyinka in his maiden poetry. The conclusion of the paper exposes the currency of issues addressed through the poet's tropes especially the urgent mediation needed in the space of leadership and followership.Item Nationalism, Hope and Eclipses of Hope in Selected Poems of Sam Omatseye(2021-10) Afolayan, Kayode Niyi; Obasoro, HannahThe transformation of African poetry from primordial to modern form has generated interesting discussions among critics. Beyond issues of aesthetics in contemporary African poetry which now witness the coalescing and manifestations of primordial forms in modern African poetry, major critical value has been attached to the social impetus that modern African poetry evinces. For Nigerian, the overall political experiences of the nation has impacted heavily on the tone of poetry so that issues of nationalism, corruption and bad leadership, criminality and insecurity and a host of others have become very prominent themes in modern Nigerian poetry and writings.Item Of Divination Tray and the Search for Utopia: A Postcolonial Reading of Okinba Launko’s Selected Poems(2022-04-30) Afolayan, Kayode Niyi; Inyang, Utitofon EbongPrimordial oral literary forms have always been very central to the evolution of modern African literature. Arguably, these forms have impacted on modern African poetry, not only on account of their recurrence in the works of poets, but also as important indices in current African poetry studies and criticism. Contemporary African poets have since stretched the limits and aesthetics of these forms to emphasize their relevance in the postcolonial space, following after the Negritude poets who set the antecedent in the use of Africa’s primordial forms albeit to serve cosmetic purpose,. This paper, using selected poems from Okinba Launko’s Dream-Seeker on Divining Chain (1993), Commemorations (2007) Seven Stations Up the Trays Way (2013), discusses the different tropes and manifestations of oral forms in modern African poetry.Item Ogun’s Tirade in the Market of Chaos: A Study of Soyinka’s "Samarkand and Other Markets I Have Known”.(The Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Abuja, 2012) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiNo doubt, the search for global peace in the world today is an issue of paramount importance. Sadly, in a direction that does not match the attention and resources dispensed on its search, the doses of internal crises enveloping the nations of the world today presage the risk of continued survival of man on the planet. In Nigeria, recent events have produced the highest manifestations of security alertness in the history of a nation. This paper, a general focus on the poetry of Wole Soyinka with particular attention to Samarkand and Other Markets I have Known (2002), examines Soyinka's latest interrogation of peace through his muse, Ogun. The writer identifies with the activities that rupture peace and the cosmetic antidotes deployed by man, the conclusion, using the market metaphor of the poet, is that the realization of multiple boundaries and the respect for them by all will foster the long sought peaceful agenda in the nation and in the universe at large.Item Proverbs and the Thematic Thrust of Selected Poetry of Wole Soyinka(Gottingen Cuvillier, 2019) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiReaders and critics of Wole Soyinka’s poetry have always grappled with the issue of inaccessibility. The polarity of discourse lies between those who strictly abhor Soyinka’s poetry on account of obscurity and others whose acceptance of the claim has engendered suggestions that proffer access to the poet’s work. In this paper, the writer compliments the latter polemic by articulating the usefulness of proverbs to the intentions of meanings in selected poems of Soyinka. By isolating the sparse but amorphous proverbs deployed by the poet, the writer recognizes the poet’s ingenious uses of proverbs and demonstrates how their contextual applications could assuage the phobia that many have towards the poetry of Wole Soyinka.Item Soyinka’s Archetypal Triad and the Dialectics of Terror(Faculty of Arts, University of Cape Coast, 2016) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiNo doubt, the search for global peace in the world today is receiving attention unprecedented in history. Perhaps, the turning point, which opened up fresh security challenges, was the infamous 9/11 attacks on the United States of America by Al- Qaeda. Since this horrific incidence, similar carnage of the Al- Qaeda has continued with the activities of the ISIS, in the Middle East, and Al- Shabaab in the eastern corridors Africa. After the menace of militant groups in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria, the country and its West African neighbors, like Chad and Cameroun, are still tremulously struggling to overcome the scourge of Boko Haram. Rightly or wrongly, ‘terrorism’ is always used as label for the activities of these groups. This paper examines the subjective nature of the term using selected poems from Wole Soyinka’s Idanre and Other Poems (1967), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972), Ogun Abibiman (1976), Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1989) and Samarkand and Other Markets I Have known (2002), as basis of analysis. The writer, drawing a compelling link between terrorist actions and the interventions of Ogun, Atunda, Shaka and Mandela in the selected poems, establishes, from the perspective of Soyinka, the causes of and antidote to terrorist acts. The conclusion of the paper emphasizes that the easiest route to the much needed global peace lies in mutual respect of boundaries by all.Item Soyinka’s Poetry, the Complex Cult and Freedom Dialectics: Between Jeyifo and Others(Ibadan: Published by Kraft Books, 2018) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiOver the years, polarized opinions have emerged on the relation between criticism and the art. In concrete terms, a distinction is easily made of critics who, seeing the work of art as a finished product in itself, have argued for the needlessness of criticism and those who have espoused the art of criticism as adding more value to the work of art. This paper explore the ways of navigating the alleged complex terrain that critics have identified with Soyinka's poetry.Item Sunnie Ododo’s Broken Pitchers and the (Im) possibilities of National Resurgence(Kwara State University Press, 2017) Afolayan, Kayode NiyiThe article looks at the quest for national rebirth using the tropes of Sunnie Ododo in Broken Pitchers (2012) as guide.