ナギーブ・マフフーズの「歴史的作品」についての一考察 -領土的ナショナリズムの文学的発露として-

抄録

Naguib Mahfouz is a world-famous novelist of Egypt. He is widely known with his social novels set in modern Egypt. His first three novels, which are set in Pharaonic Egypt, have not been studied enough so far. They are works loyal to the so-called ‘Pharaonicism’ which characterized the national literature of Egypt in the twenties of this century. The national literature was itself a new trend to give a literary expression to ‘the territorial nationalism’, or the orientation toward a nation-state. Consequently, these three works of Mahfouz are not negligible for understanding the nature of ‘the territorial nationalism’ and why this movement rapidly receded into the background in the thirties.
First of all, loyal to the Pharaonicism, Mahfouz presents the ideal image of Egypt, particularly in terms of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, in Pharaonic Egypt. This ideal image is the very image of Egypt for which Mahfouz strives. At the same time, he never fails to covertly criticize the social corruption and injustice in the real society of Egypt. However, ‘Pharaonicism’ itself has its own limitations. As Pharaonic Egypt has never been symbolic of anything positive for Egyptians until its historical value was recognized by western scholars, it cannot contribute to the legitimatization of the new ideal image of Egypt.
Secondly, ‘the territorial nationalism’ was supported mainly by western-educated intellectuals such as Mahfouz. The most serious problem for them in propagating their thought was how to communicate with the masses. The gap between these two groups of people was almost unbridgeable in those days. In these ‘Historical Works’ of Mahfouz, the masses are described as faceless and particularly as a group of people easily maneuvered by men of religion.
These works of Mahfouz shed light on the weakness of the western-educated intellectuals calling for ‘the territorial nationalism’.