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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 10
Publication Date: October 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/assrj.910.13287. Al-Rifai, N. Y. (2022). Egyptology, Theodore Roosevelt and Lord Carnarvon in the Poetry of Ahmad Shawqi. Advances in Social
Sciences Research Journal, 9(10). 259-284.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Egyptology, Theodore Roosevelt and Lord Carnarvon in the
Poetry of Ahmad Shawqi
Nada Yousuf Al-Rifai
Kuwait University
ABSTRACT
It was Shawqi's right or rather his duty for which he was entrusted with his
submissive talent, creativity, and ability to master the elements of poetry and the
tools of art in addition to his strong patriotic sense and sincere national conscience
to glorify the ancient civilization of Egypt. In this works, Shawqi praises Egypt’s
monuments and its glory and indicates what happened to the ancient Egyptians who
preceded him in the fields of science, art, building, architecture, engraving, painting,
photography, and others. Shawqi referred to the pharaonic monuments in a group
of his poems as part of a poem that has other purposes and in others as a complete
poem with one purpose. This thinking indicates the extent of Shawqi's awareness of
ancient Egyptian history, his familiarity with its events, and his use of Egyptian
history in the service of poetic art.
SHAWQI, POET OF EGYPTOLOGY
Shawqi, the Prince of Poets in the Modern Era, who excelled at many poetic purposes compared
to his contemporaries, was unrivalled. He was the subjects of praise and admiration from those
who studied and analysed his poetry. Among the purposes that Shawqi monopolized with
extravagance, the splendour of poetry, the beauty of art, the accuracy of photography, the
fascination in the description of the Egyptian antiquities, and the exhortation and lessons that
those monuments contained, and the civilization and art that it interpreted. Shawqi reached in
it an enormous amount that no Egyptian poet has never matched him. Thus, the Prince of Poets
is the undisputed poet of Egyptian Egyptology [1].
‘There was no poet before Shawqi or of his contemporaries who praised Egyptian antiquities
not even a part of his praise, and there was also no one who excelled in describing these
antiquities and being proud of them like Shawqi did, nor was there anyone who praised the
glory of ancient Egypt and chanted about its civilization as Shawqi did’ (p.72).
The following text contains only excerpts of most of Shawqi's poems that describe Egyptology.
MAJOR INCIDENTS IN THE NILE VALLEY 1894
The setting for this poem (Major Incidents in the Nile Valley), which is the longest of all of
Shawqi's poems and contains nearly three hundred lines occurred at the time Shawqi had been
chosen as the representative of the Egyptian government and attended the Orientalist’s
Conference in Geneva September 1894 AD. Egypt’s superiority over five thousand years ago
was recorded in this poem in which Shawqi mentions the history of his homeland Egypt
throughout the ages, stopping at its main historical stations from the beginning of history until
the era of the Khedive, Abbas Helmy who assigned this task to Shawqi. Completed in 1894, the
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 10, October-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
poem represents Shawqi's early poetic genius at the age of twenty-six when he created these
poetics with his unique ability to portray and express different events [2].
Shawqi delivered this great poem (Major Incidents in the Nile Valley), a lengthy poem about
Egypt, which consists of nearly three hundred lines, at the 10th International Congress of
Orientalists held in Geneva, September 1894. It is considered an epic poetry or a historical
poetry in which Shawqi first distinguished himself above all the old and modern poets and
soared up in the eyes of all beholders (p.178).
The following text is a selection of Shawqi's exquisite poem, ‘Major Incidents in the Nile Valley’
[3]. Please refer to my research ‘Lyrics in the Poetry of Ahmad Shawqi’ in which I translated 43
lines of this same lengthy poem (pp. 15–25).
رابك نلا يداو يف ثداوحلا
َونا فلم ی ُجزنا علا ُء
ّل ِلبا ٍن * وعل
ُخ ِ
َینا فلم ن
وبن
َسرھم أ
َ ْكنا فالمالكون عبید * والبرایا بأ
را ُء ُس ومل
ُل ِلبان
َى * لم ی ُجز مصر ٍ ق
َ فغال
ُ ناء ِب ِ في الزمان َ بنى فشاد
َت لبأسھا الآناء
ُ أ ْجفل الج ُّن عن عزائم فرعو * َن ودان
َّا ُء
شاد ما لم ی ِشد زما ٌن ولا أنـ * ـشأ عص ٌر ولا بنى بن
َر الدیانات فی ِھ * ف ْھي والناس والقرون َھبا ُء
ُنث
ھیك ٌل ت
ُوا َرى الإصباح والإمسا ُء
وقبو ٌر تح ُّط فیھا اللیالي * وی
ُشِفق الشمس والكواكب منھا * والجدیدان
ُ لى والفناء ِ الب ِ و ت
ُستضا ُء
ُو الشمس ِمن أع َّزِة مصٍر * والعلو ُم التي بھا ی
وبن
لـ * ـ ُخلد لو نال عمَره والبقا ُء
ْ
وبنا ٌء إلى بنا ٍء یودُّ ا
Then we built and left nothing for other builders,
We rose up while no rising sufficed us.
We owned, so all owners were slaves,
and all people were captives.
Tell a builder who built and exaggerated,
no building in time was adequate enough for Egypt.
The jinn were startled by Pharaoh's resolve,
and eras submitted to his sturdiness.
He built as no time had, nor era,
Nor what a builder ever built.
A structure in which religions are scattered,
So that they, and the people, and centuries were nothing.
And graves in which the nights are buried,
and the mornings and evenings are paralleled.
The sun and the planets eschew it,
as well as the turning days, tear and wear, and death.
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Al-Rifai, N. Y. (2022). Egyptology, Theodore Roosevelt and Lord Carnarvon in the Poetry of Ahmad Shawqi. Advances in Social Sciences Research
Journal, 9(10). 259-284.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.910.13287
And the sons of the sun, among the noblest of the Egyptians,
and the sciences by which to be enlightened.
And a building upon a building that immortality,
would like to get its life and survival.
ANS AL-WUJOUD PALACE: ROOSEVELT IN EGYPT 1910
After Theodore Roosevelt's tour of Africa, he travelled along the Nile from Aswan to Alexandria
to Cairo. Roosevelt was interested in visiting many monuments of antiquity. Thus he visited a
number of historical and archaeological sites, especially the tombs of the kings, the Karnak, and
other sites from the Sphinx to Al-Azhar. He also visited the Menahouse Hotel, Giza, Port Said,
and other places.
It is known that Roosevelt gave three important speeches related to his African tour in which
he arrived in Cairo after travelling from the city of Khartoum in which he glorified the British
occupation and called for submission to its rule and administration. The first was ‘Peace and
Order in the Sudan’ An Address at the American Mission in Khartum, March 16, 1910.The
second was in Cairo at the Egyptian University, ‘Law and Order in Egypt’ An Address before the
National University in Cairo, March 28, 1910. The third was ‘British Rule in Africa’ An Address
Delivered at the Guildhall, London, May 31, 1910. All of them showed their support for the
British rule. Roosevelt, despite being a former president at that time, was the highest American
official to visit Egypt up to that point.
When Roosevelt visited Egypt, the country was boiling with anger against the British
occupation. The Egyptians were longing for someone to support them in their battle to liberate
themselves from occupation. His visit also came in the wake of the assassination of the Prime
Minister Boutros Ghali on February 20, 1910 [4].
Kindly refer to research on Denshawai (pp.1–27).
After spending a few days in visiting Omdurman and other scenes connected
with the British conquest of the Mahdists, less than a dozen years before,
the Roosevelts went down the river to Cairo at which the ex-President addressed
the Egyptian students (p 320,[ 5])
The ‘Law and Order in Egypt’ speech, when read in tandem with his speeches ‘Peace and Order
in the Sudan’ (Khartoum, March 16, 1910) and ‘British Rule in Africa’ (London, May 31, 1910),
illustrates Roosevelt’s complicated philosophy on self-government and imperialism [6].
Theodore Roosevelt, the former president of the United States, visited Egypt in March 1910
after delivering a political speech in Khartoum (Sudan) in which he glorified the British
occupation. He made a speech at the Egyptian University in Cairo in which he opposed the
movement for the constitution, which was at its strongest, in which he stated [7]:
‘The training of an individual so as to fit him to do good work in the world is a matter of years;
just as the training of a nation to fit it successfully to fulfil the duties of self-government is a
matter, not of a decade or two, but of generations’ (p. 111).