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Before the Law(s): Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and the passages of bare life

McNulty, Eugene (2011) Before the Law(s): Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and the passages of bare life. Postcolonial Text, 6 (3). pp. 1-14. ISSN 1705-9100

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Abstract

This article examines the metaphysics of the Law in Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben, and in particular his explication of 'bare life', the article examines Soyinka's play in terms of legal contestation and the power dynamics inherent in the legal disciplining of subject bodies. The article's central argument is that Soyinka's piece is a complex performance of the transformation of subject bodies into specialised forms of colonial bare life. Thus at the heart of this play we find an explication of the power-matrix through which European Law enabled the re-articulation of indigenous life in terms generated by the bio-politics of modernity.

Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Soyinka; Law; Violence
Subjects:Humanities > Drama
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > School of English
Publisher:Postcolonial Text
Official URL:http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/1284/1212
Copyright Information:© 2011 Postcolonial Text
Use License:This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. View License
ID Code:21556
Deposited On:20 Dec 2016 10:01 by Thomas Murtagh . Last Modified 02 Mar 2022 15:21

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