Egyptian Literature Week 4 EL 114 PDF

 Egyptian Literature Trace the historical background of Egyptian literature. Summarize selected literary pieces. Articulate one’s awareness of how language works in literary text and the author’s style in writing. Egyptian Literature Ancient Egyptian literat...

 Egyptian Literature Trace the historical background of Egyptian literature. Summarize selected literary pieces. Articulate one’s awareness of how language works in literary text and the author’s style in writing. Egyptian Literature Ancient Egyptian literature comprises a wide array of narrative and poetic forms including inscriptions on tombs, stele, obelisks, and temples; myths, stories, and legends; religious writings; philosophical works; wisdom literature; autobiographies; biographies; histories; poetry; hymns; personal essays; letters and court records.  Egyptian Literature Hieroglyphics ("sacred carvings") - tombs, obelisks, stele, and temples ★ combining phonograms represent (symbols which sound) ★ logograms (symbols representing words) ★ ideograms (symbols which represent meaning or sense) Hieratic ("sacred writings") - papyrus scrolls and ceramic pots Types of Egyptian Literature Literature in the Old Kingdom ★ Offering Lists and autobiographies - first  examples of the Egyptian writing system in action ○ Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim writes: The basic aim of the autobiography - the self-portrait in words - was the same as that of the self-portrait in sculpture and relief: to sum up the characteristic features of the individual person in terms of his positive worth and in the face of eternity. ★ Catalogue of Virtues - accentuated the good a person had done in his or her life and how worthy they were of remembrance ★ Autobiography of Weni ★ Catalogue ★ Inscription of Nefer-Seshem -Ra Called Sheshi ★ Pyramid Texts allusions to the story of Osiris ★ Instructions in Wisdom ★ oldest Instruction - Prince Hardjedef ★ Mesopotamian Naru Literature Types of Egyptian Literature Literature in the Middle Kingdom ★ considered the classical age of Egyptian literature ★ Egyptologist Rosalie David comments on this period: ★ Pessimistic Literature David ★ Didactic Literature - The Dispute Between a Man and his Ba (soul), The Eloquent Peasant, The Satire of the Trades, The Instruction of King Amenemhet I for his Son Senusret I, the Prophecies of Neferti, and the Admonitions of Ipuwer. ★ The Dispute Between a Man and his Ba - oldest text on suicide in the world  ○ The piece presents a conversation between a narrator and his soul on the difficulties of life and how one is supposed to live in it. In passages reminiscent of Ecclesiastes or the biblical Book of Lamentations, the soul tries to console the man by reminding him of the good things in life, the goodness of the gods, and how he should enjoy life while he can because ★ The Man Who Was Weary he will be dead soon enough. of Life - Egyptologist W.K. Simpson has translated the text and disagrees with the interpretation that it has to do with suicide. ★ Simpson writes: ★ The Eloquent Peasant - a poor man who can speak well is robbed by a wealthy landowner and presents his case to the mayor of the town ★ The  Satire of the Trades - as a man advising his son to become a scribe because life is hard and the best life possible is one where a man can sit around all day doing nothing but writing ★ The Instruction of Amenemhat - features the ghost of the assassinated king warning his son not to trust those close to him because people are not always what they seem to be; the best course is to keep one's own counsel and be wary of everyone else. ○ The actual king Amenemhat I (c. 1991-1962 BCE) was the first great king of the 12th Dynasty and was, in fact, assassinated by those close to him. ★ Prophecies of Neferti - foretell the coming of a king (Amenemhat I) who will be a savior to the people, solve all the country's problems, and inaugurate a golden age. ★ Admonitions of Ipuwer - the piece has come to be recognized as literature of the order vs. chaos didactic genre in with which a present time of despair and uncertainty is contrasted an earlier era when all was good and life was easy. ★ The Lay of the Harper (also known as The Songs of the Harper) - question the existence of an ideal afterlife and the mercy of the gods and, at the same time, created hymns to those gods affirming such an afterlife. ★ The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor and The Story of Sinuhe - most famous prose narratives in Egyptian history Types of Egyptian Literature Literature in the New Kingdom ★ Between the Middle Kingdom and the era known as the New Kingdom falls the time scholars refer to as the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1782-c.1570 BCE). ★ Egypt was united, and the Hyksos and Nubians driven beyond the borders, by Ahmose of Thebes (c. 1570-1544 BCE) who inaugurated the New Kingdom. ★ Age of Empire - The early pharaohs of the New Kingdom dedicated themselves to preventing any kind of incursion like that of the Hyksos and so embarked on a series of military campaigns to expand Egypt's borders ★  Hyksos and the Second Intermediate Period - it made the works richer and more complex in plot, style, and characterization. Rosalie David writes: ★ Scribes had always been considered an important aspect of Egyptian daily life and the popularity of The Satire of the Trades ★  Papyrus Lansing and the Papyrus Chester Beatty IV ★ Worship of Thoth - Thoth received a consort: his sometimes-wife/sometimes-daughter Seshat. ★ Rosalie David explains the function of this part of the temple: ★ Song of Solomon - hymns, prayers, instructions in wisdom, praise songs, love poems, and stories ★  Truth and Falsehood (also known as The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood) - a good and noble prince (Truth) is blinded by his evil brother (Falsehood) who then casts him out of the estate and assumes his role. ★ The Report of Wenamun - story about an official sent on a simple mission to procure wood for a building project ★ The Prince Who Was Threatened by Three Fates (also known as The Doomed Prince) and The Two Brothers (also known as The Fate of an Unfaithful Wife) - best known tales  ★ The Doomed Prince ○ a son is born to a noble couple and the Seven Hathors (who decree one's fate at birth) arrive to tell the king and queen their son will die by a crocodile, a snake, or a dog. His father, wishing to keep him safe, builds a stone house in the desert and keeps him there away from the world. The prince grows up in the isolation of this perfectly safe environment until, one day, he climbs to the roof of his home and sees the world outside of his artificial environment. ★ The Two Brothers ○ tells the story of the divine siblings Anubis and Bata who lived together with Anubis' wife. The wife falls in love with the younger brother, Bata, and tries to seduce him one day when he returns to the house from the fields. Bata refuses her, promising he will never speak of the incident to his brother, and leaves. When Anubis returns home he finds his wife distraught and she, fearing that Bata will not keep his word, tells her husband that Bata tried to seduce her. Anubis plans to kill Bata but the younger brother is warned by the gods and escapes. Anubis learns the truth about his unfaithful wife - who goes on to cause more problems for them both - and must do penance before the brothers are united and the wife is punished.  ★ The Contendings of Horus and Set - order vs. chaos motif in which Horus (champion of order) defeats his uncle Set  (symbolizing chaos) to avenge his father Osiris and restore the kingdom which Set has usurped ★ The Book of Coming Forth by Day, commonly known as The Egyptian Book of the Dead - originated in the Early Dynastic Period and the book took form in the Middle Kingdom, it became extremely popular in the New Kingdom and the best preserved texts we have of the work date to that time. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a series of "spells" which are instructions for the deceased in the afterlife to help them navigate their way through various hazards and find everlasting peace in paradise. The work is not an "ancient Egyptian Bible", as some have claimed, nor is it a "magical text of spells". As the afterlife was obviously an unknown realm, The Egyptian Book of the Dead was created to provide the soul of the deceased with a kind of map to help guide and protect them in the land of the dead.  ★ Pyramid form of the Maya ★ New  Kingdom came the era known as the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1069-525 BCE) and then the Late Period (525-323 BCE) and the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BCE) after which Egypt was annexed by Rome ★ Rosetta Stone in 1798 CE and the breakthrough in deciphering hieroglyphics it enabled by Jean-Francois Champollion in 1824 CE.