Mythmaking as self-making and nation-building: a reading of Wole Soyinka’s “Idanre”

Abstract

This paper investigates how Soyinka uses Yoruba mythology in his poem “Idanre”. It avers that Soyinka uses Ogun as his tutelary deity in an attempt at self-reclamation and nation-building. It shows how Soyinka transposes the nature and symbolism of Ogun in Yoruba mythology to an interpretation of the contemporary postcolonial socio-political situation in Africa. Furthermore, the paper argues that Soyinka borrows mythical symbols from Greek mythology and blends these with those from Yoruba myth in an attempt to forge a new, hybrid African identity.