Ancient Reign

The most ancient works of Egyptian literature, called the “Texts of the pyramids”, are funeral texts engraved inside the pyramids by the last pharaohs of the Ancient Reign with the aim to assure to the dead king his deserved role in the afterlife; they include mythological stories, magic formulas, religious hymns and ritual precepts. In the private tombs even inscriptions have been found about the dead person’s participation to historical events. Other examples of the literary production of the Ancient Reign can be gotten from manuscripts of the Middle Reign, which were probably copied from previous works; some of them include ethic norms and moral and political sentences. After the decline of the Ancient Reign, the “Texts of the Pyramids”, enriched with magical formulas, were adapted to private burials and began to be engraved or painted on the sarcophaguses; so today they are called the “Texts of the sarcophaguses . To the First middle period (XXIII-XXI century BC), an age of great political instability, laments on the confused social situation, are attributed: one of these, indicated generally as the Dialogue by a desperate with his soul, includes a debate on suicide; in the text of a funeral hymn it’s urged to drink, to eat and to be happy, before it’s too late. A mirror of the literature of the origins are the “books of knowledge”, made by sayings or teachings which had to suggest to the reader the right behavior to keep in the community. The most ancient one is the so-called Ptahhotepe’s Teaching, a functionary of the V dynasty, who wanted to give his son the principles of a behavior suitable for a high functionary: a kind of “practical guide” to success, that can be obtained with a good education, respect for the hierarchies and moderation. This work had a great fortune in the following ages together with another book of knowledge: the Maxims by Kagemmi. In the Feudal Age there is a new theme given by the doubt and by the debate; in fact, the problem is whether it is worthy to live in the world with bitterness and disappointments, or die and go to the afterlife of which the beatitude, though proclaimed, is still dubious. The tragic tones of the Dialogue by the Desperate with his soul, or the Harpist’s Hymn, where the consideration of the frailness of things induces to the bitter exhortation of taking what good the present gives. Finally a description about Egypt upset by discords at the end of the Ancient Reign, with famines, revolts, stealing caused by the sovereign’s ineptitude, appears vivid and realistic in the lamentations by Ipu.

Middle Reign

The religious literature of the Middle Reign includes hymns to the kings and to the gods, and also a long hymn dedicated to the Nile, and many ritual texts. The sarcophaguses of the epoch still had inscriptions with information about the dead person and historical events, while the sovereign began to report their undertakings through hieroglyphics engraved on the steles. To this period go back the texts in which the reigning pharaoh taught his son or successor the events of his reign and gave instructions and advice how to reign in the best way. Moreover the literature of the Middle Reign greatly developed the narrative potentials of the Egyptian language, producing fantastical stories, mostly on a magic background, satiric texts and stories. This is the period of the “beautiful writing” that becomes a school subject. The literature expresses a innovated spirituality, in which the doubt changes, from uncertainty and anguish, to the awareness that the oppositions can be dominated to establish again the social order. In a book of maxims by Kheti, called “Satire of the Trades”, because a review of them is its central part, a father teaches his son that education and culture decide each one’s destiny, while in the hymn to the Nile (probably composed by Kheti himself), the river god and nature are praised, as they are the good compensation for the uncertainty of living. Next to these demanding works, it is an escape the beautiful “Story of Sinuche, in which an imaginary courtier, Sinuche, tells himself in an autobiographical, about his exile in a foreign land during Sesostri’s I reign and about his great nostalgia for his homeland, up to the return and the establishment of the old roles. Of the same tone, although more fanatic, are the stories of the Castaway, a kind of Simdbad the sailor of the Thousand and One Nights, and the Story of the eloquent Oasist, a Bertoldo who demands justice to a high functionary, against the arrogance of a local master. Next to this kind of literature there is the fortunate series of the “royal stories”, stories about princes and masters of the time that was, of fabulous palaces and magicians; their peculiarity is that the stories are enclosed in a “frame”, an expedient that later will be taken up again in other literatures and various epochs.

New Reign

The funeral literature of the New Reign, particularly the text known as the Book of the dead, was written on papyrus and destined to the tombs. The most famous among the hymns of that period include those composed during Akhenaton’s reign and dedicated to the Sun, the supreme god. At the end of the Second middle period (XVII-XVI century BC) the inscriptions by king Kamose report the first presences of the hyksos on Egyptian land. In the first period of the New Reign, the number of the inscriptions increased considerably and the religious texts increased damaging the private autobiographical ones. Tuthmosi III ordered to report on the walls in the temples in Karnak the information about his military campaigns in Asia. Also the following sovereigns of the New Reign, particularly Ramses II and Ramses III, left long stories about their own undertakings, such as the chronicles about the battle in Qadesh, fought by Ramses II against the ittiti. The didactic works, now addressed to the lower classes of bureaucracy, abandoned the concept that the right thinking and the right acting brought to the earthly success to suggest, instead, contemplation and constancy. To this period go back many mythical stories about the fights between Horus and Seth and about the apocalyptic destruction of humanity, but also poetical composition of love subjects.

Greek-roman Epoch

From the end of the New Reign to the Greek-roman epoch, other literary works coherent with the previous tradition were still produced, which included religious texts, private and dynastic chronicles, didactic works, stories, scientific treaties about medicine, mathematic and astronomy. To this epoch go back papyruses which include moral precepts that invite to mildness and to devotion, in strong contrast with the works of the more ancient times. After the VII century other stories were composed of the Cycle by Petubasti, that talk about the undertakings of a legendary king found on papyruses, in demotic writing. To the same period go back stories that have as protagonists animals, that let see through, as the epich cycle by Petubasti, the influence of Greek literature, the same that appears in the magical texts of which there are a Greek and an Egyptian version. A series of classical compositions (among which the Maxims by Anii) want to reaffirm the ancient moral certainties; but they are too perfect to let understand the plot of the sentences. It’s an exception the hymn to Aton written by Amenofi IV, on which in the great poetic inspiration there are religious faith and fervent feeling for all the beauties of creation. At the same time the autobiography and the story on historical background are improved. The neo-egyptian literature adopt in the story a plot marked by myth and symbols opened to every interpretation (Story of Truth and Lie; Story of the two brothers Anubi and Bata) and it elaborates love lyrics permeated by sensuality that skims eroticism. This poetry declines with the XIX dynasty, substituted by the historic epic, the first world-wide example in the Poem by Pentaur, written for Ramses II. The Late Age has left us moral maxims, autobiographical and fairy-tale works of narrative. (Stories by Setna, cycle by Petubasti).