Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale

Rivista | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Fascicolo | 57 | 2021
Articolo | 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

Presentato: 22 Gennaio 2021 | Accettato: 08 Aprile 2021 | Pubblicato 30 Giugno 2021 | Lingua: en

Keywords ʿAlī Aḥmad BākaṯīrTawfīq al-ḤakīmPharaohsPharaonismAlfred FaraǧEgyptian playwrightsYaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ


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