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Welcome to Truly Afrasian

Through our magazine, you will be able to widen your knowledge on different types of literature, especially on African and Asian Literature.

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October 2019 Issue Sneak Peeks

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Egyptian Literature

Refers to all compositions other than the merely practical (lists, contracts, lawsuits, and letters).

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Exploring Egypt

Formal Name

Junhuriyah Misr al-Arabiyah (Arab Republic of Egypt)

Form of Government

  Republican

Capital

Cairo

Language

Modern Standard Arabic

Religion 

Sunni Muslim

Currency

Egyptian Pound

Population

100,833,202  (2019 est.)

Climate

 Hot deserted land

Famous Landmarks

Pyramids of Giza

This complex is created for the tombs of pharaohs. The pharaohs are buried with different objects that are believed to guide them in the afterlife. It is considered the last surviving of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Luxor’s Karnak Temple, Valley of Kings

This is where the Temple of Hatshepsut is found. It is also the ancient Thebes, the new kingdom of pharaohs. The tombs and walls possess historical texts and artifacts that are captivating to tourists.

Isalmic Cairo

This district is filled with mosques, madrassas or the school for Muslim children, and historical monuments. This ancient architecture of the different buildings in this district have been preserved over time.

Description of Country

Egypt is located in the Northeastern part of Africa by the Mediterranean Sea. Its ecosystem is predominantly barren and deserted, thus, only 5% of its land area is utilized by the population. Egypt is considered as one of the oldest civilizations which sprung from the Nile. Ancient Egyptians used to call their land as Kemet because of the rich, dark soil it is covered with where civilizations began. Egyptian culture is highly influenced by Greek and Roman culture due to its geographical location. Egyptians value life on Earth as well as the wonders of the afterlife.

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LITERARY TIMELINE

Digging Deep into Egyptian Literature

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LITERATURE

Variety of narrative and poetic forms

Composed of inscriptions, myths, legends, poetry, religious writings, hymns, essays, letters, court documents

Works are usually recorded on leaves, trees, stones, and Papyrus

Rosetta Stone: stone with carvings in Egyptian and Greek Language which revealed the hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek scripts)

EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD (c. 6000- c. 3150 BCE)

First examples of Egyptian writing

Hieroglyphics - sacred carvings composed of phonograms (sound representation), logograms (word representations), and ideograms (implying meaning or sense)

Hieratic - sacred writings but less formal and precise than hieroglyphics and have aesthetic arrangement of symbols

Demotic - popular writing used from 700 BCE until the rise of Christianity

OLD KINGDOM (c. 2613- c. 2181 BCE)

First Intermediate Period

Catalogue of Virtues - new ability to capture the formless experiences of life in the enduring formulations of the written word (Lichtheim, 5).

reminiscing the goodness of a person

reflected the ethical standards of society

Offering lists and autobiographies - carved on the tombs. They contain a list of offerings and prayers for regular visitors as well as remarkable works of the deceased.

Pyramid Texts - 5th and 6th dynasties, about king’s life, virtues, and journey to afterlife

Creation myths - the story of Atum and the story of Isis, Osiris, and Horus

MIDDLE KINGDOM (2040-1782 BCE)

Classical Age of Egyptian literature. Middle Egyptian script as the highest form of hieroglyphics was created.

Pessimistic/ Didactic Literature - complexities of life that teaches moral lesson. The Dispute Between a Man and his Ba: the oldest suicide text.

The Eloquent Peasant: tackles about combating injustice experienced by a poor man because of a wealthy landlord’s robbery.

The Instruction of Amenemhat: depicts a father advising his son on the best course in life; Amenemhat’s murder and how he believes he will be rewarded in the afterlife.

Admonitions of Ipuwer: narrates the chaotic state of Egypt before the Middle Kingdom.

NEW KINGDOM (c. 1782- c. 1570 BCE)

Second Intermediate Period 

Inscriptions and hymns are focused on religion and praising the gods like Amun, Osiris, and Isis. Stories and poems emphasized on societal issues and problems encountered in the daily life, as well as living life to the fullest

Egyptian Love Poem: invocation of a beloved which entails devotion and sacrifice similar to Song of Solomon.

Truth and Falsehood (also known as The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood): tackles about nobility, avenge, and relationships.

The Prince Who Was Threatened by Three Fates (also known as The Doomed Prince): talks about the adventure of a prince to meet his fate, including the person he falls in- love with as well as the challenges he conquered.

The Two Brothers: the conflict between Anubis and Bata because of infidelity committed by Bata and Anubis’ wife leading to vengeful actions.

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HALL OF FAME

Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)

The Thief and the Dogs (1961)

Autumn Quail (1962)

Small Talk on the Nile (1966), and Miramar (1967)

Notable Achievements: Nobel Prize in Literature Recipient, 1981

Taha Hussein (1889-1973)

Fi al-shiʾr al-jāhilī (1926; “On Pre-Islamic Poetry”)

Al-Ayyām (1929, An Egyptian Childhood)

The Stream of Days (second installment of Al-Ayyām, 1932)

Mudhakkirāt (1967, A Passage to France)

Notable Achievements: Modernist Egyptian literature proponent, but wrote in Arabic- Known for his novels, stories, criticisms, socio-political essays. Became a professor in Arabic literature. 

Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm (1898-1987)

Ahl al-kahf (1933; “The People of the Cave”)

Muḥammad (1936)

Shahrazād (1934)

Al-Malik Udib (1939; “King Oedipus”)

Pijmalīyūn (1942; “Pygmalion”)

Sulaymān al-Ḥakim (1934; “Solomon the Wise”)

Notable Achievements: Founder of contemporary Egyptian drama and major contributor in modern Arabic literature - engaged himself in legal studies and theatre. 

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Literary Works

Instruction Addressed to Kagemni by Kagemni

This is a wisdom text during the Middle Kingdom which revolves around the teaching on how to live a life of prosperity and goodness.

The Eloquent Peasant by Anonymous

This text from the Middle Kingdom tackles about combating injustice experienced by a poor man because of a wealthy landlord’s robbery. It values different societal justice and equality.

A Tale of Two Brothers by Chad R. Mitchell

It tackles about the conflict between Anubis and Bata because of infidelity committed by Bata and Anubis’ wife leading to vengeful actions

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References

Mark, J. (2016, November 14). Ancient Egyptian Literature. Retrieved                          from https://www.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Literature/

The Rosetta Stone. (n.d.). Retrieved from             http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/rosetta.html

The Egyptian Writing. (n.d.). Retrieved from             http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/homemain.html#ros

Tour Egypt. (2011, June 28). Retrieved from http://www.touregypt.net/taleoftwobrothers.htm

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Chinese Literature

Extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature vernacular fiction novels that arose during the Ming dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese.

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China in a Nutshell

Formal Name

People’s Republic of China

Form of Government

Single-party people’s republic with one legislative house (National People’s Congress)

Capital

Beijing (Peking)

Language

Mandarin Chinese

Religion

Chinese folk-religion and Buddhism

Currency

Renminbi (Yuan)

Population

1,390,691,000 (2018 est.)

Climate

Diverse climate, ranging from extremely dry conditions in the northwest to tropical monsoon in the southeast

Famous Landmarks:

Great Wall of China

This is seen as a symbol of China. It is considered to be one of the greatest wonders of the world and was listed as a World Heritage by UNESCO in 1987.

The Forbidden City (the Palace Museum)

This used to be an imperial palace in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Now, it is a large museum that houses a great number of historical relics. Nonetheless, it is still considered to be the largest imperial palace in the world.

The Terracotta Warriors Museum

This is a collection of sculptures of first Emperor Qin’s battalions. This life-sized terracotta army can be found in a museum located in Xi’an.

Description of Country

The People’s Republic of China is a country located in East Asia. It is the largest country in the Asian continent and is characterized by having the largest population in the entire world. China is home to a wide array of ecological niches that is filled with a large number of plant species and some of the world’s most exotic animals. It is an ethnically homogenous country with its vast population mostly comprised of Chinese (Han) individuals. It is also one of the few countries that had flourished economically and culturally in the earliest stages of world civilization (Twitchett et al., 1998).

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LITERARY TIMELINE

A Glimpse into Chinese Literature

c. 1600 BCE – 1000 BCE

Early Chinese ghost stories

c. 1600 – 1046 BCE

Shang oracle bones

626 CE – 649 CE

Woodblock printing process (developed under the rule of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty)

701 CE – 761 CE

Life of Wang Wei, a great Chinese poet and painter

•701 CE – 762 CE

Life of Li Po, greatest poet of the Tang Dynasty

712 CE – 770 CE

Life of the poet Du Fu, great poet of Tang Dynasty

768 CE – 824 CE

Life of Han Yu, "the Shakespeare of China"

772 CE – 846 CE

Life of Bai Juyi, greatest poet of later Tang Dynasty, author of "Song of Everlasting Sorrow"

806 CE

Tragic love affair of Xuanzong and Lady Yang immortalized in Chinese poem "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" by Bai Juyi

868 CE

First printed book, the Diamond Sutra

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HALL OF FAME 

Du Fu (712 CE – 770 CE)

 Bingqu xing (The Ballad of the Army Carts)

 Liren xing (The Beautiful Woman)

Notable Achievements: Considered by literary critics to be the greatest Chinese poet of all time.

Cao Zhan (1715 CE – February 12, 1763)

Hongloumeng (Dream of the Red Chamber)

Notable Achievements: Author of China’s greatest novel, Hongloumeng (Dream of the Red Chamber)

Lu Xun (September 25, 1881 – October 19, 1936)

Kuangren riji (Diary of a Madman)

A-Q zhengzhuan (The True Story of Ah Q)

Notable Achievements: Greatest writer in 20th century Chinese literature

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Literary Works

Liren xing (The Beautiful Woman) by Du Fu

During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, he took in Yang Guifei as his consort and this almost brought the country to ruins. Du Fu, in his poem, “Liren xing” (“The Beautiful Woman”), wrote about “the feasting of this family, the beauty of their women, and the political power of their men” (Hsieh, 2008, p. 11). In other words, it is a poem of social criticism wherein Du Fu speaks of the glaring luxuries of the court during the rule of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty.

Hongloumeng (Dream of the Red Chamber) by Cao Zhan 

This novel narrates the decline of the Jia family with the focus being on the spoiled, yet gifted heir of the clan, Baoyu. Baoyu is constantly chastised by his father, mostly because his father loathes his intimacy with his female cousins and maidservants. This novel tells its story in a series of episodes and is said to be semiautobiographical in nature. It portrays the upper-class life in the early Qing dynasty and the characters depict a psychological depth that had never been seen before in Chinese literature (Augustyn et al., 1998).

Kuangren riji (Diary of a Madman) by Lu Xun

This short story is about a “madman” who believes that he alone is sane in a “man-eating” world filled with madmen (Goldblatt, Nienhauser, Li, & Wilhelm, 1998). This is a story inspired by Nikolay Gogol’s work of the same title. Lu Xun’s “Diary of a Madman” criticized the traditional Confucian culture of China and enabled the short story to be accepted as an effective literary form because it was the first published Western-style story written in vernacular Chinese (Xiaoming, 1998).