Literature and welcome to literature.

history dot come.

Hello and welcome to literature and history.

Episode 5 beneath the obelisks.

Last time we took a long look at the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, a vast tome full of

incantations designed to safeguard the body and soul of the deceased. More copies and fragments of the Book of the deceased.

More copies and fragments of the Book of the Dead have been found in Egyptian dig sites than any

other piece of writing.

But Egyptians, like their Mesopotamian counterparts, were prolific writers.

Though their writing materials were more perishable, often papyrus and linen, in comparison

to the Mesopotamians durable clay tablet, we still have enough

ancient Egyptian writing to form a picture of their secular and commercial lives as

well. I want to start with a couple of anecdotes. As someone who's taught lots of literature

at the college level, of course I've had to grade a lot of essays. For the most part, I've enjoyed

it. It's great to watch your students think through the prose, poems, and plays that you love and have tried to share with them.

Sometimes I jump up and dance. But occasionally I've seen certain kinds of

logically problematic assumptions or generalizations and like all English

teachers have tried to show students how this or that paragraph might be clearer or more argumentatively watertight.

One generalization in particular that's made me want to grind my teeth from time to time was

when students would write back then. For instance you might hear

Hamlet delays his plan for revenge because back then people were very religious

and they knew murder was bad.

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