Egypt Writes to Imperial Britain

Abstract

My PhD explores the way Egyptian writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries responded to, remediated and syncretised the colonial writings of nineteenth- century British writers on both ancient and contemporary Egypt. To date, scholarship has explored the Victorian fascination with ancient Egypt, and the way this marginalised contemporary Egyptians by viewing Egypt as solely belonging to the past. My thesis builds on and extends this work by examining how Egyptian writers like A mad Shawqī (1868–1932) and Najīb Ma f (1911–2006) incorporated ancient Egyptian history (often utilising scholarship conducted by Western archaeologists and historians), and simultaneously adopted and appropriated European literary forms. It argues that this remediation was in response to Victorian (mis)conceptions, and had the intention of contributing to a modern Egyptian literary culture and imagined nationhood. Through the appropriation, circulation and adaptation of European forms, these Egyptian writers created a distinctly Egyptian content in their literature, which impacted on the emergence of a nationalist discourse and facilitated the exploration of contemporary Egyptian identity. This thesis addresses the fascination of Victorian writers with ancient Egypt through various sources, including popular travel writing, archaeologist accounts, and Gothic fiction about Egypt. As numerous critics have argued, Victorian writers considered nineteenth-century Egyptians inferior, assuming their ignorance of their own ancient civilisation and culture. However, chapters two and three focus on the emergence of Pharaonism within the modern Egyptian nationalist movement and examine how prominent Egyptian writers, including Shawqī and Ma f , reclaimed the significance of ancient Egypt, while envisioning a modern nation and identity.