Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale

Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Journal issue | 57 | 2021
Research Article | Pharaohs and Playwrights between Fiction and Reality: Controversies in the Egyptian Cultural Field

Pharaohs and Playwrights between Fiction and Reality: Controversies in the Egyptian Cultural Field

Abstract

Going through the controversies involving pharaohs as fictive characters, this article focuses on the life and works of four Egyptian playwrights (Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ, ʿAlī Aḥmad Bākaṯīr, Alfred Faraǧ and Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm). Deeply engaged in the politics of their time, playwrights’ experiences with ‘pharaohs’ are studied here with the aim of highlighting the different perceptions of the character of the pharaoh in Egypt and in the West, retracing the implications of the common pairing of pharaohs with presidents, as well as showing how literature can affect politics and how the collocation of pharaohs in the Egyptian cultural field remains problematic, but is changing.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Jan. 22, 2021 | Accepted: April 8, 2021 | Published June 30, 2021 | Language: en

Keywords Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm • Egyptian playwrights • Alfred Faraǧ • ʿAlī Aḥmad Bākaṯīr • Pharaonism • Pharaohs • Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ

Copyright © 2021 Daniela Potenza. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2021/01/004


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