Jonsonian Stylistic Modes in Sutherland: A Study of Jonson’s Volpone and Sutherland’s The Marriage of Anansewa

Abstract

Jonsonian dramatic theories gained notoriety during the Renaissance period and most dramatists and critics (of that century and beyond) have appropriated those theories in the construction of their literary crafts and criticisms all within the Eurocentric tradition. Limiting literary creativity and criticism to the Western tradition raises a question that this essay seeks to interrogate. Drawing inspiration from Wa Thiong’o’s (1997) advocacy for a metaphor of a flower garden to represent the wholeness of Literature and Borowy’s (1983) model, this paper studies Jonsonian stylistic modes in Volpone (1605) and compares them to Sutherland’s artistic choices in The Marriage of Anansewa (1975) to make a case for a refluence of aesthetic energies among the two artists despite the fact that four centuries elapse in the exhibition of those artistic skills.

Keywords: Archetype, echoes, gull-knave pattern, moral legators, semblances, trickster.

DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/96-01

Publication date: February 28^th 2023