Женские образы в художественных произведениях Древнего Египта

M. : URSS, 2009.

Banshchikova A.

The monograph is devoted to the study (description and analysis) of the images of women in various genres of ancient Egyptian literature, such as belle lettre proper, didactic literature (so-called Teachings), and love poetry. The research lies at the edge of two kinds of studies: gender history of Ancient Egypt which deals with the place and role of the woman in society with its mental paradigm on the one hand, and the history of ancient Egyptian literature as a keeper and reflector of social values and normative settings on the other hand.

Chronologically, the research is large-scaled: its lower limit lies within the Old Kingdom period (2794 – ca. 2200 B.C.E.), to which one group of texts actually belongs ("The Instruction of Hardedef", "The Teaching for the Vizier Kagemni") and the other ascends by origin ("The Maxims of Ptahhotep", "King Cheops and the Magicians"). The upper limit is also defined by the latest copies of the texts (which were created earlier and then copied), namely the latest copy of "The instruction of Onchsheshonqy" – the 1st century B.C.E.

Studying each genre’s narratives, we are interested in such features of women characters as: the ability to demonstrate and realize their own initiatives including sexual; the emotional and plot-based motivations of actions; ratio and correlation of male and female characters; the level of independence in women’s actions and the level of dependency on the actions and will of men; the most typical models of behavior; the content and meaning of appearance descriptions; the ability for constructing the plot (and influencing it); etc.

Keywords: Древний Египет, Ancient Egypt, положение женщины, любовная лирика, status of women, didactic literature, ancient Egyptian tales, love poetry, images of women, дидактическая литература, древнеегипетские сказки и повести, женские образы