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Sinuhe, R.B. Parkinson (Translator)The Tale of Sinuhe: and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940-1640 B.C.
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | BCEA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Anaphora and Repetition
The written literature’s close association with, and possible roots in, oral literature is revealed in the poetic devices of repetition and anaphora, the repeating of introductory phrases. Repetition is a device that aids memorization and helps speakers frame their message; it also serves to emphasize important information for an audience. This emphasis appears in “The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor,” when the sailor depicts his fellow crewmates as looking like lions, stressing the tragedy of their forthcoming deaths. A similar repetition is found in “The Tale of King Cheops’ Court” when the speaker describes how the gods attend the birth of the divine triplets born to Ruddjedet. The repeated acts and prophecies around each birth take on the power of a magical incantation or ritual.
In the discourses, anaphora is used to link related ideas and images, especially images of chaos, disorder, or destruction. “Dialogue of a Man and his Soul” uses the device of anaphora to repeat full phrases that express lament, while “The Dialogue between Ipuur and the Lord of All” uses repeated initial phrases and vocatives like “O” to link his litany of woes.
Juxtaposition and Parallelism
Juxtaposition and parallelism both work to pair ideas for purposes of comparison. Parallelism typically sets words, phrases, or images side-by-side to create a connection or demonstrate their similarity, while juxtaposition of two or more elements is used for comparison or contrast. As opposed to metaphor or simile, which makes comparisons overt, parallelism and juxtaposition rely on the reader to make inferences as to the meaning or intent. One frequent juxtaposition in the poetry is to set a previous age beside the current one, usually meant to induce a comparison that is unflattering to the contemporary moment.
Parallelism in the poetry most frequently appears inside of a line or passage. The sage Neferti says of the coming King Ameny: “Asiatics will fall to his slaughtering / and Libyans will fall to his flame” (139), using the repetition of “will fall” to emphasize the actions of conquest. Parallel sentence structures are often used for similar emphasis: Parallelism emerges in the various lists that appear, such as of deeds, riches, or crimes.
Inversion and Antithesis
Antithesis is a figure of speech that pairs opposite or contrasting ideas in a shared grammatical structure to emphasize their difference. The device appears frequently throughout the poetry, for example when the Vizier Ptahhotep, in his dialogue, warns his son not to pride himself on being wise or think he has perfected an art; “Perfect speech is more hidden than malachite, yet it is found with the maidservants at the millstones” (251). The idea that perfect speech can be both rare and common reminds the listener to be diligent about where he observes or listens for speech that is a model of wisdom and righteousness.
The sage Neferti introduces an image of inversion when he uses the Nile to suggest that the world is upside down: The riverbed is dry, preventing the passage of ships, yet the riverbank is a flood (136). Likewise, in “The Dialogue of Ipuur and the Lord of All,” Ipuur shares several stanzas of imagery depicting inversion of the natural or just order to illustrate how widespread is the chaos in the land. The contrast frequently becomes a way to alert the listener to the need for action to set things right.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Metonymy is a rhetorical device that works on the principle of association, defined as when one aspect, quality, or characteristic of an entity is used to replace or stand in for the entity. A frequent example in the poetry is when a tomb is used to stand in for the idea of death or passage to the afterlife; similarly, one’s name or fame is used to refer to a person’s reputation that will endure after death.
Metonym is closely related to synecdoche, which is commonly described as one part standing in for the whole. Using references to the Nile to indicate all of Egyptian civilization is an example, as the Nile was the heartbeat and lifeblood of agriculture. Likewise, using the king to represent Egyptian government or society is a synecdoche, as the king is a key authority figure. “Asiatics” are often used as a metonym to indicate any variety of those considered outsiders or foreigners to Egyptian culture. The heart is used as a synecdoche to indicate the entire human being, as mind, soul, and wisdom were believed to be concentrated in this organ.
