Drama and national culture: A Marxist study of Ebrahim Hussein.

摘要

Recent criticism in African literature has begun to examine the question of national literatures within the category of "African literature." This dissertation contributes to that discussion by focussing on the writings of the Swahili playwright, Ebrahim Hussein, within the framework of a Marxist epistemology. Because most of Hussein's plays have not yet been translated, his dramatic oeuvre has received little commentary from non-Swahili-speaking critics. Thus, this constitutes the first full-length, English-language study not only of a Swahili playwright but of any writer who has written in an indigenous African language. The Marxist theoretical framework was chosen in part for its harmony with the assumptions of local literary criticism. As a society which bills itself as in transition to socialism, Tanzania has fostered an intellectual tradition of radical discourse.;Chapter one introduces the terminology of nation, state, tribe, and national culture. My own definitions, drawn from Marxism, will emerge in the context of a debate on the nature of Swahili society which arose in Tanzania in the early 1970s.;The following three chapters are devoted to close readings of Hussein's plays. Chapter two examines the influence of European naturalism on the early plays. Readings of Kinjeketile and Mashetani through an examination of their respective central signifiers are offered in chapter three. Chapter four adopts the concept of "articulation" as developed by Marxist anthropology and shows its operation in both the form and content of the later plays.;Chapter five examines the intellectual climate which produced theories about drama's form and function in Tanzania and traces Hussein's itinerary from a general acceptance of these ideas to the embracing of a different aesthetic tradition. In chapter six, the actual function of Hussein's plays within Tanzanian culture is discussed.;The conclusion offers a few observations about the nature of national culture and the place that literature has within its formation.