Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Death and the King's Horseman
A Yoruba ritual suicide interrupted by British colonial intervention — Soyinka's 1975 major tragedy, the central work of modern African theatre
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Death and the King's Horseman (Mid (the major play of Soyinka's career)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Tradition |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Death and the King's Horseman
The ritual time of the king's burial and the horseman's passage; the modern colonial time intervening.
Space
Death and the King's Horseman
The Yoruba market and shrine spaces; the colonial administrative spaces; the metaphysical space of the passage.
Matter
Death and the King's Horseman
The embodied bodies of Elesin, Olunde, the British officials.
Observer
Death and the King's Horseman
The plural cast of Yoruba and colonial observers; the ancestors and the unborn as further observers in the Yoruba ontology.
Energy
Death and the King's Horseman
The ritual-metaphysical energies of the passage; the destructive energy of colonial intervention.
Information
Death and the King's Horseman
The Yoruba ritual-religious tradition; the colonial archive; the tragedy as preserved cultural memory.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Soyinka's author's note insists the play is not a "clash of cultures" tragedy — it is the horseman's own failure of metaphysical-ritual will, accompanied by but not caused by colonial intervention. Post-colonial criticism has engaged the play variously. The Olunde character (returning from England to take his father's place) has been the central interpretive figure. Soyinka's 1986 Nobel Prize was the first awarded to an African writer.