Wole Soyinka
general and specifically in Kola’s painting, are flawed and “incomplete”
essences who must themselves constantly seek completion by periodically
reuniting with the human community. This subtle critique, given in some
of the novel’s most evocative passages, has the effect of “earthing” the
often overwrought inscriptions and discourses of archetypes, essences
and idealities in this novel in a way that is almost unparalleled in Soyinka’s
prose works.
The Man DiedandSeason of Anomyare the two prose works in Soyinka’s
tetralogy on the Nigerian civil war. The other two titles in this quartet
are the volume of poems collected inA Shuttle in the CryptandMadmen and
Specialists, the great allegorical drama discussed in the previous chapter.
These works constitute a tetralogy both in the ordinary sense of four
titles sharing common themes and deriving from a common event or
experience and in the older classical sense in which the dramatic poets
of ancient Athens performed four consecutive plays in theCity Dionysia,
the four plays comprising three tragedies and a “satyr play.” The “satyr
play,” a farcical, ribald drama lacking in the artistic polish and thematic
gravities of the three tragedies, was intended to ironize and deflate the
high-minded seriousness of the other three plays. Given the extensive
use of burlesque and parody inMadmen and Specialists, it would at a first
approximation seem that this is the “satyr play” in Soyinka’s civil war
tetralogy; but this is inaccurate sinceMadmen and Specialistis an utterly
serious play that is meticulously crafted and that achieves a consummate
synthesis of radical social vision and avant-garde aesthetic form. The
true “satyr play” in this tetralogy isSeason of Anomywhich is without
question Soyinka’s greatest artistic flop, the cause of the reversal of critical
opinion of Soyinka’s stature as a novelist after the impressive success
ofThe Interpreters. SinceThe Man Diedderives from the same personal
experience and historical event asSeason of Anomy, it is useful to discuss
both works comparatively and intertextually in order to account for the
ferocious power and poignancy of the one and the spectacular artistic
failure of the other.
In the very brief prefatory note toThe Man Diedtitled “the unacknowl-
edged,” Soyinka writes poignantly about the severely limited scope of
reading and writing he was allowed by his jailers during his twenty-seven
month incarceration during the Nigerian civil war. There is nothing gra-
tuitous about his bitter observations in this prefatory note, his main in-
tention being to demonstrate how and why his captors were particularly
meticulous in preventing books that were sent to him from ever reaching
him, and how the writing he was thus able to do was made possible by