The Reinscription of Ancient Egypt in Modern Arabic Literature:
[Thesis]
Mohamed, Aya
Aḥmad Shawqī's Shayṭān Bintāʾūr Aw Lubad Luqmān Wa-Hudhud Sulaymān (the Demon of Pentaur or the Eagle/Vulture of Luqmān and the Hoopoe of Solomon) (1901)
Stetkevych, Suzanne P.
Indiana University
2019
307
Ph.D.
Indiana University
2019
In this dissertation, I revisit the literary-cultural movement known as Pharaonism (al-Firʿawniyyah). Despite his thematic foregrounding of ancient Egypt, the foundational role of the great Neoclassical poet Aḥmad Shawqī (1869-1932) in Pharaonism is often sidestepped. Following the lead of Suzanne Stetkevych's structural reading of the Arabic qaṣīdah, I argue that this evasion is attributable to the underestimation of the ritual structure informing Shawqī's literary corpus. Paying special focus to the sui generis and highly cryptic work, Shayṭān Bintāʾūr aw Lubad Luqmān wa-Hudhud Sulaymān (1901), I demonstrate how it encompasses the climactic 'epiphany' through which the essence of Shawqī's Pharaonist message is most clearly communicated.