Many studies have noted that modern tragedy evolved from the rudimentary stage of Attic tragedy to the more sophisticated Elizabethan tragedy. Critics argue that no classic tragedies are written today, although the forms and formulas of tragedy remain intact. These arguments hold true in most cases because contemporary tragedies do not typically involve characters of high status or cosmic plots. However, we cannot definitively claim that there are no affinities between contemporary and Attic tragedies. Contemporary African tragedies, for example, share features with Attic tragedies. By comparing African tragedies, particularly Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, with a Greek tragedy such as Sophocles’ Antigone, we find striking similarities. I contend that Death and the King’s Horseman and Antigone share numerous common traits and, therefore, exhibit prominent affinities because the former follows a similar model to the latter.

Sophocles’ Antigone recounts the tragic story of a despotic king, Kreon, who loses everything he values due to his unwavering faith in human-made laws. Antigone learns that both of her brothers are dead, fulfilling a prophecy that they would kill each other. She also discovers that Eteocles has received a stately burial, whereas Kreon has issued a royal edict banning Polyneices’ burial, deeming him a traitor. Antigone defies the edict by burying her brother but is caught and imprisoned, where she takes her own life. Unaware of this, Kreon’s son and Antigone’s fiancé, Haemon, and the Chorus attempt to persuade Kreon to release her. Kreon eventually relents, but by the time he recognizes his errors, his son and wife have also killed themselves, leaving Kreon in distress and sorrow.

Similarly, the action of Death and the King’s Horseman, based on a real event, unfolds in a Yoruba town. Elesin, a prominent chief and the king’s chief horseman, is required by local law to commit suicide following the king’s death. Prepared for this duty, Elesin notices a beautiful girl at the market and desires to marry her before departing this world, despite her engagement to the son of Iyaloja, the “Mother” of the market. No one dares refuse him. District Officer Pilkings learns of Elesin’s intention and, spurred by his wife, Jane, orders Amusa, his Black sergeant, to arrest Elesin. Amusa returns insulted and reports the incident to Pilkings. When Pilkings takes command, Jane speaks with Olunde, who is pursuing a medical degree in England with Pilkings’ support. Olunde reveals he has returned to bury his father, certain that Elesin will complete the ritual suicide. However, when Elesin is brought in alive with his bride, Olunde leaves, muttering “eater of leftovers” (52). Later, at Olunde’s written request, Elesin’s people are admitted with a burden, cautiously. The burden is revealed to be Olunde’s dead body. While the colonial officials are shocked, Elesin strangles himself. The story concludes with a courier whom Elesin should send to the waiting king with a message that he may journey alone without him. When Elesin asks to see the courier, Olunde’s dead face is revealed. The colonial officials are stunned, and Elesin, in one swift movement, strangles himself. The drama ends as the young wife closes Elesin’s eyes.

Aristotle’s Poetics, often considered the standard for tragedy, outlines six elements of tragedy: plot, language, characters, thought, spectacle, and music. Greek tragedies incorporated these elements. This does not mean, however, that modern tragedies lack these elements; in fact, most modern tragedies include them. Nonetheless, Attic and modern tragedies differ in their plots, language, and characters (for example, classic tragedies feature elevated characters, while modern tragedies depict ordinary people). Similarly, Greek and modern tragedies diverge in thought, spectacle, and music. For instance, the former extensively employs music, whereas the latter does not necessarily utilize it. As a Greek tragedy, Antigone encompasses all six elements. It is noteworthy, however, to observe these elements in Death and the King’s Horseman, a drama written in the twentieth century. This suggests that Soyinka’s work boasts remarkable affinities with Greek tragedy.

Peter Burian, in his study “Myth into Mythos: The Shaping of Tragic Plot,” argues that “the plots of Greek tragedies were drawn largely from a limited repertoire of legends, the great cycles in which the Greeks came to terms with their own past” (178). Burian further contends that Greek tragedians transformed old tales “into tragic plots” (179). Indeed, Greek tragedies emphasize cosmic truths and contemporize ancient stories. The plot of Antigone is based on the legend of Antigone. Rather than focusing on worldly truths, the tragedy prioritizes divine truths. For example, when Kreon denies Polyneices a proper burial, Antigone fights for “the immutable unwritten laws of Heaven.” Antigone is more concerned with universal laws than state laws, aiming to maintain cosmic equilibrium by observing divine mandates. Similar loyalties to otherworldly deities appear in Death and the King’s Horseman. This play focuses on appeasing the gods to ensure the continuation of Yoruba life, with the horseman’s ritual suicide being essential for this purpose. Like Antigone, who is prepared to die for divine laws, Elesin displays an extraordinary attitude toward death:

Praise-singer. That rock which turns its open lodes
Into the path of lightning. A gay
Thoroughbred whose stride disdains
To falter though an adder reared
Suddenly in his path.
Elesin. My rein is loosened.
I am master of my Fate.
When the hour comes
Watch me dance along the narrowing path
Glazed by the soles of my great precursors.
My soul is eager. I shall not turn aside. (7)

Someone ready to “dance along the narrowing path” is remarkably otherworldly, mirroring Antigone’s fearless acceptance of death.

David Rush, in A Student Guide to Play Analysis, argues that character analysis involves literal, functional, and connotative aspects. Applying this three-level analysis to Kreon and Elesin reveals significant similarities. Literally, Kreon embodies a stubborn king determined to uphold the rule of law, stating, “If thus I nurse rebellion in my house, / Shall not I foster mutiny without?” Elesin shares this stubbornness, unwilling to relinquish his carnal desires. At the door of death, he remains preoccupied with the world, which is “the bounty” (10). Functionally, both characters’ adamancy drives the plot, making them protagonists. Connotatively, Sophocles’ Kreon and Soyinka’s Elesin illustrate how stubbornness can lead to personal and communal downfall. Given their shared unyielding nature, the protagonists are similar.

The language in Antigone and Death and the King’s Horseman is similar to a large extent, although, as Iva Gilbertova notes in “Wole Soyinka: Death and the King’s Horseman,” the latter also employs prose. The language in both plays is grandiose. The language of Antigone is not that of common people; it is poetic and oratorical, rich with figures, symbols, and didactics. For example, Antigone accepts death with ease, unlike an ordinary person:

Friends, countrymen, my last farewell I make;
My journey’s done.
One last fond, lingering, longing look I take
At the bright sun.
For Death who puts to sleep both young and old
Hales my young life,
And beckons me to Acheron’s dark fold,
An unwed wife.
No youths have sung the marriage song for me,
My bridal bed
No maids have strewn with flowers from the lea,
’Tis Death I wed. (806–813)

Her readiness to face death is unusual, as people typically do not dwell on or fearlessly confront death. Similarly, Death and the King’s Horseman centers on death, as seen in lines like, “I said nothing. Now we must go prepare your bridal chamber. Then these same hands will lay your shrouds” (14). The language in Death and the King’s Horseman is also poetic, though scenes involving Englishmen use prosaic language, aligning the play more closely with Greek tragedy than modern tragedy.

Parallels between Antigone and Death and the King’s Horseman can also be drawn in terms of the number of characters. Unlike modern tragedies, Greek tragedies feature numerous characters on stage. Antigone includes Antigone, Ismene, the Chorus (fifteen aged noblemen of Thebes), Kreon, a Guard, Haemon, Tiresias, a Messenger, Eurydice, and various guards and attendants. Similarly, Death and the King’s Horseman features a large cast, including Elesin, Iyaloja, Pilkings, Mrs. Pilkings, Joseph, the Bride, the Prince, the Resident, an Aide-de-Camp, Olunde, drummers, women, young girls, and dancers at the ball.

Similarities also exist in the use of music and chorus. Greek tragedies prominently feature choruses and singing. Nietzsche argues that “tragedy arose from the tragic chorus and was originally chorus and nothing but chorus” (34). Greek tragedies are rich in musical qualities, primarily through the chorus. In Antigone, the chorus sets the mood, creates a musical effect, presents alternative viewpoints, argues with Kreon, and captivates the audience. In Death and the King’s Horseman, music and dance play a vital role. Oyebade Ajibola Dosunmu, in The Appropriation of Traditional Musical Practices in Modern Yoruba Drama, notes:

Dance functions in the same way throughout the play, particularly in act three when Elesin dances halfway into the other world to the sound of ritual drums. Soyinka’s use of music and dance in Horseman, therefore, fulfills Nzewi’s ideal for the use of music and dance as a means of propelling plot in a manner based on traditional models. The same is true of Soyinka’s uses of music for characterization, mood generation, and the appeal to a sense of communal aesthetics. (69)

Thus, music, dance, and the praise-singer’s contributions enhance characterization, mood, and communal aesthetics, making them significant aspects of the play. Both plays share musical traits and, therefore, exhibit similarities.

In conclusion, given that Sophocles’ Antigone and Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman address similar issues—namely, the necessity of human sacrifice for the continuation of civilization—employ comparable musical elements, center on elevated characters, and use ornate language, the latter shares close affinities with the former. This also demonstrates that African plays bear striking similarities to Greek plays.

Works Cited

• Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher, Cosimo, 2008.
• “Death and the King’s Horseman.” Crosswinds: An Anthology of Black Dramatists in the Diaspora, edited by William B. Branch, Indiana UP, 1993, pp. 1–52.
• Dosunmu, Oyebade A. The Appropriation of Traditional Musical Practices in Modern Yoruba Drama: A Case Study of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman. U of Pittsburgh, PhD dissertation, d-scholarship.pitt.edu/7478/.
• “Myth into Mythos: The Shaping of Tragic Plot.” The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge UP, 1997, pp. 178–179.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. “The Birth of Tragedy.” The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, 7th ed., Cambridge UP, 2007, p. 34.
• Rush, David. A Student Guide to Play Analysis. 2nd ed., Southern Illinois UP, 2005.
• Sophocles. Antigone. Gutenberg, 6 Feb. 2013, www.gutenberg.org/files/31/31-h/31-h.htm. Accessed 20 June 2018.
• “Wole Soyinka: Death and the King’s Horseman.” Brno Studies in English, vol. 21, 1995, pp. 85–87.