Reading Response 3
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Arts Humanities
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Jan 9, 2024
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Uploaded by ProfCat7855
Taye Brown
CLAS 150C1
06/15/23
Reading Response #3: Golden Age of Literature
For this assignment, I'd like you to do two things. First, since this literature is more focused (to
some extent) on regular people than the Old Kingdom literature from the last module, I'd like
you to write 150+ words about what you think we can learn about everyday life and everyday
people from these texts. What was daily life like? What themes emerge? Second, I'd like you to
write 150+ words about what these texts reveal about kingship. Consider, perhaps, how it's
different in the Middle Kingdom than it was in the Old Kingdom. Make sure to support your
assertions with at least 3 references to the texts.
How we live now and how people lived back then has its huge differences from each other but it
also has its similarities to each other in a multitude of ways. One similarity would be that they
had a ruler back then and it may not have been the same type of ruler that we have today but we
also do have a “ruler” but we call him the president and they do not do things the same but they
have the same role which is to lead over their people. Another thing that stuck out to me was
when the text said, “They formulate and ponder problems of life and death and seek solutions.”
(Instructions of Amenemhat, Page 2) We have some similarities to this because we may not
always ponder decisions of life and death but we do ponder decisions in life and find the seek
solutions to the problems.
Kings had a lot of stuff on their plate. At times they had to do things that some people did
not like but it was for the better of the people. For example, although Amenemhet had done a lot
of great things it may not end up the best for you in the end. In the text it stated that, “Though
Amenemhet’s thirty-year rule ended with his assassination, it had been a vigorous and successful
reign. And near its beginning it had been glorified in the work known as the Prophecies of
Neferti.” (Instructions of Amenemhat, Page 2) Even though he made the Prophecies of Neferti
which was a huge thing at the time someone still was not happy with him and assassinated him.
And how the Old Kingdom is different from the Middle Kingdom was in the text it stated that,
“In short, works such as the Prophecies of Neferti formulated a general social problem and
treated it from an entirely loyalist point of view: the king was the guarantor of order and of
justice. This point of view was of course inherited from the Old Kingdom.” (Instructions of
Amenemhat, Page 2) How it ius different now is that it was now formulated through a depiction
of chaos and the chaos overtakes the nation when kingship is weak.
Bibliography
‘The Instructions of Amenemhat’ in
Ancient Egyptian Literature: The Old and
Middle Kingdoms by M. Lichtheim,
Berkeley: University of California Press,
2006.
Word Count: 371
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