Notes on the forms and uses of didactic language in ancient Egyptian and Greek narrative works

Sayings, proverbs, and didactic passages were often employed in ancient literature to convey ethical messages, support arguments\ and portray prudent characters. In this essay I present the first results of a project on the uses of didactic language in ancient Egyptian and Greek literature. The project is funded by the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research (NWO) and is hosted by the Radboud University of Nijmegen. The points of comparison discussed in this essay concern the forms and functions of didactic material identified in ancient Egyptian and Greek literary narratives, such as the stories of Sinuhe and of the Shipwrecked Sailor, which are compared to Greek prose or verse narratives, such as Heliodorus’sAithiopica and Apollonius’s Argonautica. The aim of this study is to define a cultural phenomenon (that is, the production and literary usage of such didactic material) common to ancient Egypt and Greece and interpret it in terms of its contribution to the making of literature in these two civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean