Interpreting The Tale of Sinuhe: An Ancient Egyptian Poem

About The Tale of Sinuhe

Read The Tale of Sinuhe, including the introduction and footnotes. (If you don’t read all this material, you might not understand the poem.) 

After you read the poem, read my notes for class discussion, below. As you read these discussion notes, answer the questions that I would ask you as a class to yourself. In so doing, have your copy of The Tale at hand. It will help you in deciding how to interpret the text. (Note: You do not need to answer the questions in written form. Think of the answers in your head.)

When you’re done reading these discussion notes, read the instructions for your weekly writing assignment at the end of this document. If you have any questions about the assignment, please email me. 

1. Introduction and Preliminary Questions 

The Tale of Sinuhe is an ancient Egyptian poem from around the 20th or 19^th century BCE. 

So it's about 4,000 years old. 

The Tale of Sinuhe is about a man a court official who works for the king of Egypt, whose name is Sinuhe. 

In The Tale, a group of Egyptian aristocrats is on a conquest and slaving expedition in Libya. (Like Egypt, the modern state of Libya is in North Africa).

Word reaches the expedition party that their king is dead, and a new king has taken the old king's place. 

What's happened?

Historically, the Egyptian king’s son has had actually had the king killed while the son is away on his slaving expedition. 

But the writer of The Tale of Sinuhe (who is supposedly Sinuhe, though that may be part of the fiction) doesn’t tell you, the reader, this fact. Instead, the narrator carefully leaves out this crucial fact. 

(Think about why this might be the case.) 

So the courtier (or royal court official) Sinuhe has a crisis - a kind of nervous breakdown. 

He flees Egypt for the lands east the Sinai peninsula - possibly the region sometimes known as Syria-Palestine.

While in the desert, Sinuhe almost dies of thirst, and - following a series of tribulations - he's rescued by a local warlord or chieftain, who takes him under his wing, gives Sinuhe his daughter in marriage, and sets up the Egyptian as a lord in a fertile part of this “Eastern” land. 

Sinuhe prospers, and when his rule is challenged by a local warlord, he defeats the warlord in hand-to-hand, and reigns still stronger. 

But in the act of battling this warlord for control of his newfound estate, Sinuhe has a second crisis, a crisis of conscience—one which results in a revelation.

Summary of The Tale of Sinuhe

Sinuhe’s revelation is that he is an Egyptian, not an inhabitant of Syria-Palestine - and that fulfillment in life lies with the fulfillment of duty to his homeland, its civilization and its customs, especially his relationship to his new king (the son who has his father killed). 

As if reading Sinuhe's mind from afar, the new king sends the former courtier a message encouraging Sinuhe to return to court.

Sinuhe renounces his family, his estate, and newfound status as an eastern lord, and returns to Egypt.

Back in Egypt, Sinuhe offers his service to the new king (i.e. the father-killer/king-killer); Sinuhe is made more powerful than he was before; and he is buried near the new king himself – with The Tale, his story, being read on and off for millennia. 

This is a fascinating and beautiful poem - one dating from near the dawn of written imaginative literature. 

So are the poet's major concerns with this poem? What's the poet's message in the big-picture? 

(Keep in mind: Many modern works of literature don’t have “moral messages”; in fact, many writers today might not know how to write fiction with a moral in mind. But for thousands of years, writers did just that.) 

One answer: Be loyal to the institution of kingship - no matter what the cost. 

Other morals of the story?

So: Why does Sinuhe flee when he learns the old king is dead? 

What does Sinuhe learn in the east? 

Why does Sinuhe return to Egypt?

How does Sinuhe's relationship with the new king change from beginning to end? 

Notes on Interpretation

There are as many ways to interpret texts (literary legal,scientific) as there are people. 

But here is a simple, two-part way to interpret literary texts. (It may not apply to all literature; but it applies to much perhaps most of the literature you’ll read in this class.) 

You can, if you like, think of great works of literature like folk tales. There's a literal meaning, and there’s a deeper meaning. 

Think of the literal meaning as equivalent to the plot. And think of the deeper meaning as equivalent to the moral of the story but also to the deeper meaning of specific words and phrases characters speeches and actions. 

Three chief facets of the literal meaning or the plot that you should always examine are events relationships relationships between characters and speeches (monologues or dialogues). 

Here are two things necessary for your success in this class: (1) close reading, and (2) interpretation using textual evidence. 

A close reading is a reading of a text where you focus on what an author has to say, what the author’s purpose is, and what his or her words mean. Above all, a close reading is designed to uncover the deeper meaning of a text with reference to its structure, situations, dialogue, and specific words and phrases. 

To read closely, start by doing things: First, underline words and phrases that are especially significant; second, write down notes in the margins concerning two things: (i) what's going on at the literal level; and (ii) what you think the author's deeper point is at any given place in the text. 

When you underline and write notes about the literal meaning and the deeper meaning, you're creating evidence. This evidence or these pieces of evidence will be the building blocks of your interpretation of the text. 

Interpretation is the act of explaining the meaning of something. (It’s something you invent based on what you see.) 

In the context of literature, interpretation involves taking the evidence you've gathered from close reading and explaining what that evidence indicates that a writer is saying (or, alternatively, what she or he is hiding and what's really going on in a text).