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Transnationalism and Performance in 'Biyi Bandele's Oroonoko

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace
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Abstract

'Biyi Bandele's Oroonoko, in its textual and performance history, bridges eighteenth- and late-twentieth-century forms of transnationalism. The Oroonoko story has always been an improvised text. Bandele's play relates to earlier versions of the Oroonoko story by Aphra Behn, Thomas Southerne, and John Hawkesworth. Three issues in Bandele's Oroonoko have special relevance to a transnational reading of the play: the deployment of an African setting as a strategy for counteracting a pseudouniversalism; the place of anachronism, especially in the representation of gender relations; and Bandele's use of English as a means of conveying Yoruban culture. His play raises the question of what it means to “sell” Oroonoko to a wide audience today.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 119 , Issue 2 , March 2004 , pp. 265 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2004

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