Home > Feminism > Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages - Annette Depla (Essay Date 1994)
Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages - Annette Depla (Essay Date 1994)
ANNETTE DEPLA (ESSAY DATE 1994)
SOURCE: Depla, Annette. “Women in Ancient Egyptian Wisdom Literature.” In Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night, edited by Lé Léonie J. Archer, Susan Fischler, and Maria Wyke, pp. 24-52. London: Macmillan Press, 1994.
In the following excerpt, Depla focuses on three texts of Old Kingdom Wisdom Literature as they relate to women in ancient Egyptian society.
The Old Kingdom (2628-2134 B.C.) was a period of relative prosperity and stability with ‘no obvious challenge to, or major malfunction in, the social order’.1 Instructions from this period are resolutely upper-class, reflecting the mores and attitudes of the wealthy Egyptian male. Three texts are traditionally assigned to the period, namely, the Instruction to Kagemni, the Instruction of Hordjedef, and the Instruction of Ptah-hotep.2 Four...
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Primary Sources
- Pan Chao (Poem Date C. 1St Century)
- Yu Xuanji (Lyric Date C. 9Th Century)
- Three Beautiful Sisters, Orphaned Young
- Izumi Shikibu (Diary Date C. Early 11Th Century)
- Marie De France (Poem Date C. 12Th Century)
- Heloise (Letter Date C. 1163/64)
- Catherine Of Siena (Essay Date 1370)
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