The Classics in Female characters: A Revolutionary Portrayal in Femi Osofisan’s Selected plays /

Abstract

Classics have generally been perceived from the angle of the Greco-Roman literary contributions. The Renaissance scholars pronounced these contributions more through their humanistic studies and revelations of the profundity of classical literary materials. They defended the classical ethics prescribed for different literary genres, like Aristotle’s three unities. A deconstruction of the classical tradition will reveal some characters that reverberate from the Greco-Roman epoch to the contemporary time. It is, therefore, not surprising that contemporary writers refract these classical characters to satisfy diverse contemporary needs. Another perspective to classics, which will be the primary domain of this study, is the timeless reverberations of some literary creations, exclusive of the Greco-Roman canon, which may include characters, events and motifs in literary texts. These reverberations make these classic creations become timeless with infinite importance in different periods. This reconceptualisation of the classics aptly describes some typical female characters in Femi Osofisan’s drama texts. This study, therefore, interrogates some revolutionary female characters in selected plays of Osofisan. This interrogation will be based on their classic roles and how these typical roles have made them to stand the test of time, therefore, making the female characters a model in contemporary time.