Modern Idiomatic (rather than literal) Translation of Ancient Egyptian Verse and Imaginative Prose

FAIN: FB-10594-70

John T. Foster
Roosevelt University (Chicago, IL 60605-1315)

Fellow to receive further language training in Egyptian hieroglyphics at the Oriental Insitute at the University of Chicago. Long-range goal is the recovery of ancient Egyptian literature for the modern reader as literature; that is, in idiomatic rather than literal translation. Recovery of ancient Egyptian literature would extend literary horizens back to around 2000 BC (most studies of world literature go back no further than The Illiad, 800 BC). Will give greater understanding of the matrix out of which classical Greek literature developed and of the earliest stages of the western literary tradition. Fellow hopes to teach a course which ends---not begins--with The Illiad.