SOURCE: Ramachandran, C. N. “Structure within Structure: An Analysis of Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 25, no. 1 (August 1990): 199-203.

In the following essay, Ramachandran examines stylistic aspects of The Lion and the Jewel, noting the effect of the trickster figure and ritual dance on the structure of the play.

Although Wole Soyinka's plays have received considerable if not adequate critical attention in India and abroad, the focus has been mostly on his political plays. For instance Michael Etherton discusses Soyinka as a satirist and political thinker in The Development of African Drama, and analyses only Madmen and Specialists, A Dance of the Forests, and Opera Wonyosi.¹ Simon O. Umukoro comments on “the political vision” in Soyinka's plays with particular reference to A Dance of the Forests and Kongi's Harvest.² Lewis Nkosi is interested primarily in tracing Soyinka's political ideology in A Dance of...