Moolla, Fatima Fiona2026-01-072026-01-072025Fiona Moolla, F., 2025. Amorous Materialism: Jousting with Courtly Love in Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters. English Studies in Africa, pp.1-14.https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2025.2583662https://hdl.handle.net/10566/21622Wole Soyinka’s first novel, The Interpreters (1965), presents a critique of European conceptions of romantic love, influenced by courtly love, that have not yet been considered in scholarship of this important novel. Through the animist materialist treatment of an ornate, heart-shaped wardrobe, inspirited by Sir Derinola, a parody of a medieval knight, The Interpreters presents trenchant criticism of the dominant courtly-romantic love complex. Soyinka’s materially embodied critique of an imposed idea of love constitutes a Yoruba-informed amorous materialism, where complex feelings in relation to love and reflections on love may be seen to re-enchant the physical world. Amorous materialism is Soyinka’s iteration of a postcolonial model of love, which is presented mainly in the relationship of Sagoe, one of the key interpreter figures in the novel, and Dehinwa, a female character often regarded as marginal in scholarship of the novel. This relationship is marked by the conventionally conceived features of romantic love, like exclusivity, loyalty and endurance, but the sentimentality, formality, courtesies and niceties of European models of courtly-romantic love are roundly rejected. Postcolonial paradigms of love, variations of which may also be seen in a range of other postcolonial literature, are conceptions of love that challenge colonially normalized ideas about love and romance. Soyinka’s representation of postcolonial love in its vitriolic, exuberant, masculinist disavowal of the European courtly-romantic love complex, however, inadvertently risks the charge of misogyny.enAmorous materialismCourtly loveFeminismPostcolonial loveRomantic loveArticle