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Ancient Egyptian Literature: Secular
Egypt had a very old national literature that was
not affected by any significant outside influences during its
formative period. It promoted the historical and military
achievements of the kings and attempted to ensure their worldly
success and continuation after death. Although many major advances
including literary forms were introduced for religious purposes
before they were put to secular use, as early as 2000 BC the
Egyptians produced “entertainment literature” with no primary
religious, political, or commercial purpose. They cultivated
literature for its own sake and displayed a highly developed sense
of form and style. Not only do literary texts extend over a time
span of some 3,000 years, but they preserve a wide range of subject
matter.
Historical Inscriptions Historical texts often occur in religious contexts (tomb or temple walls), although the content is primarily concerned with the king’s military exploits. Since the New Kingdom was the period of greatest activity in warfare and empire-building, it is not surprising that most of these texts date to this time. The earliest military undertaking of the New Kingdom was the expulsion of the Hyksos, and the most significant account of this occurs in the tomb autobiography of Ahmose, son of Ebana, at el-Kab. This relates the events of his career as a professional soldier in the service of King Amosis. The extensive campaigns and conquests of two kings of Dynasty 18 in Nubia and Syria/Palestine were recorded in two great historical inscriptions: the Annals of Tuthmosis III, preserved in carvings on the walls of two halls behind the sixth pylon (gateway) in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, which provide an annual record written in a factual way; and the Poetical Stela of Tuthmosis III, a hymn of victory and triumph proclaiming the king’s dominion over his empire. The hymn was carved on a black granite stone discovered in one of the courts of Amun’s temple at Karnak and is composed as a speech delivered by the god. Later in the New Kingdom the Ramesside rulers fought against the Hittites in an attempt to reestablish the empire, and their exploits are again enshrined in historical inscriptions. The campaign of Ramesses II to Kadesh on the Orontes is recorded in two main accounts, the Bulletin (repeated in multiple copies on temple walls) and the Poem (repeated eight times on temple walls and also in two hieratic papyri). The Poem is the first known example of an epic in Egyptian literature; earlier poems had been used for celebration rather than narration. Later Ramessides also inscribed accounts of their campaigns on temple walls: Ramesses III’s successes against the Sea Peoples decorate the walls of his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu and provide important historical information. . Entertainment Literature The New Kingdom was also a time of prosperity and sophistication when entertainment literature was developed for the enjoyment of the leisure classes. Two main genres emerged the popular story and the love poem. .
POPULAR STORIES
Storytelling had existed in the Old Kingdom and
had developed into an art form by the Middle Kingdom with such
classics as the Story of Sinuhe. The popular story known as King
Cheops and the Magicians is preserved in the Westcar Papyrus, which
dates to the Hyksos Period (c.1600 BC), though its content places it
in the Old Kingdom. Unlike other tales intended to educate and
inform the upper and middle classes, the style and language of this
text indicate that it would have belonged to Egypt’s popular
tradition, passed on orally by public storytellers traveling from
town to town. Although it was expressed in popular terms, the story
had specific political and religious propagandist aims: to justify
to a wide audience the claim of the earliest kings of Dynasty 5 to
rule Egypt by emphasizing the divinity of their birth. The story
uses a technique found in other propagandist texts: It takes the
form of a prophecy, although written after the events it describes,
and thus seeks to justify the actions of a particular king or line
of rulers. Events of the Middle Kingdom are reflected in the famous
Story of Sinuhe, often regarded as the greatest masterpiece of
Egyptian literature. Composed as an autobiographical text intended
for the tomb, it relates the events in the life of a man called
Sinuhe. It may in fact be a true story, and it was so popular that
it became a classic copied by generations of scribes. Some of these
numerous but fragmentary inscriptions have survived, but the major
existing copies can be found on two papyri in the Berlin Museum and
a large ostracon in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. The
story seems to accurately represent true historical events of the
Middle Kingdom; it relates Sinuhe’s flight from Egypt to Palestine,
his adventures there, and his eventual return to Egypt to die and be
buried. The text characterizes Sinuhe as an individual with feelings
and emotions and has succeeded in engaging the reader’s sympathy
over the centuries. The popular story was further developed in the
New Kingdom: New ideas were added, the narrative grew longer and
more complex, and allusions appeared that indicated the Egyptians’
more cosmopolitan outlook and exposure to many foreign influences
and experiences. Sometimes the tales have an “exotic” location or
show an awareness of foreign peoples and events. They frequently
have mythological backgrounds or settings; some are entirely
concerned with gods’ activities, and in others, even if the
locations and characters are human, events occur in a fantasy world
where animals can speak and humans have almost divine powers. Among
the mythological tales are the Story of Horus and Seth, which
retells an earlier account of the conflict between these two gods,
and the Destruction of Mankind, which relates how human evil aroused
divine wrath and resulted in the partial destruction of mankind.
Some stories, such as The Doomed Prince, have both divine and human
elements; in this tale the prince was threatened by three fates at
birth, and the actions he and his father took to try to avert his
death are recounted. In the Tale of Two Brothers a conflict between
two gods is translated into the human sphere and related as a
quarrel between two brothers. Although the world in which they
functioned retains some supernatural qualities, the story basically
seeks to explore human feelings through the two main characters and
their actions. Other tales have a historical background; for example
the Capture of Joppa relates an incident in the Palestinian
campaigns of Tuthmosis III. Another example, the Story of Wenamun,
differs from the others in that it appears to describe actual
conditions and events that existed at the end of Dynasty 20 (c.1080
BC). It is a tale of misfortune and failure set in a period of
Egypt’s decline when prestige had been lost and Egyptians traveling
abroad (in this case, Wenamun) encountered many difficulties. As a
vivid and realistic account of a trading voyage in the eastern
Mediterranean, it is an important social and historical document.
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LOVE POEMS
Unlike the popular story love poetry has no apparent history in
Egypt before the New Kingdom. The extant poems are contained in four
texts (Papyrus Chester Beatty I, Papyrus Harris 500, the Turin
Papyrus, and the Cairo Museum Vase). They were written as short
“songs,” and many may have been sung, each perhaps being followed by
the playing of a musical instrument. Each poem is presented as a
monologue by a man or woman describing the speaker’s feelings and
emotions. These were not spontaneous poems, which were then later
written down, but sophisticated literary pieces using a range of
composition techniques that represent a specific and apparently
innovative art form. There is great emphasis on associating the
emotions of love with an acute awareness of the beauty of the
landscape, and there are many allusions to trees, flowers, gardens,
and water. In the poems the lovers frequently refer to each other as
“my brother” or “my sister,” but this does not indicate any familial
relationship; these were simply terms of endearment. Although short
stories continued to be composed in later periods, the love poetry
seems to cease at the end of the New Kingdom.
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Ancient Egyptian Literature: Secular
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