Bolesław Prus’s Pharaoh(s) – Two Literary Visions of the Human Condition and Our Fascination with Ancient Egypt

Abstract

This paper discusses two publications and two “pharaohs” (fictitious protagonists) in the historical and Egyptological context of a short story and a novel by Polish writer Aleksander Głowacki (a.k.a. Bolesław Prus). It looks at the observations of a writer fascinated by the dramas of powerful, extraordinary people and visions of a civilization that were firmly embedded in Poland and the whole of Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. The first discussed publication is a short story, A Legend of Old Egypt, on Ramzes (all names given in original spelling provided, either by the author in the case of the short story or the translator in the case of the novel) and his grandson, Horus – the first work in which Prus used “historical costume” to comment on the present and on the human condition. The plot of the masterpiece, Pharaoh, takes place in ancient Egypt and is a story of Ramses XIII’s life. The authors of this paper intend to explore the complexity of Prus’s protagonists against a historical and Egyptological background.