Vinson Steve. The Craft of a Good Scribe: History, Narrative and Meaning in the First Tale of Setne Khaemwas

BRILL, 2018. — 363 p. — ISBN 978-90-04-35309-1.In The Craft of a Good Scribe, Steve Vinson offers a comprehensive study of the Demotic Egyptian First Tale of Setne Khaemwas (Third Century BCE), the first to appear since 1900. "First Setne" is the most important extant Demotic literary text, and among the most important fictional compositions from any period of ancient Egypt. The tale, which is by turns lurid, tragic and ultimately comic, deals with Setne's theft of a magic book written by the god Thoth himself, and subsequently Setne's punishment through a hallucinatory encounter with the ghostly femme fatale Tabubue. Vinson provides a new textual edition and commentary, and explores the tale's cultural background, its modern reception, and approaches to its interpretation as a work of literature.History
A Work of Unexpected Quality
The Mask of Khaemwas
An Unfathomable Snare of the Evil One
An Excellently Weird and Romantic Story
From Daffodils to Derrida
Narrative and Meaning
The First Tale of Setne Khaemwas
Repetition, Mirroring and mise en abyme
Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo
At What is It That He Gazed?
Ihweret, Tabubue and the “Magic Book of Thoth”