THE GREAT HYMN TO THE ATEN (through the literary criticism: New Historicism)

The Great Hymn to the Aten is a short Egyptian hymn that was written about the sun as being a God named Aten. This hymn was written in ca. 1350 B.C.E and it was inscribed at the entrance to the tomb of an important official in the new capital city of el-Amarna. This hymn basically “celebrates the sun as creator and sustainer of the world and emphasizes the close connection between the God and his human counterparts, the king (Amenhotep IV) and queen (Nefertiti).” From this quote we can understand that the King, Amenhotep, was the one who strongly believed in and was devoted to serving Aten (Sun God). So much so that it is said in the text that “the king initiated a religious and political revolution when he exclusively promoted the cult of the sun God, Aten, built a new capital, and changed his name to Akhenaten, which means ‘He who is effective for Aten’.” It is obvious that King Amenhotep (aka Akhenaten) was the first one to bring about the idea of the sun as a God and he literally created a religion out of this belief. King Amenhotep believed so strongly that the sun was the creator and giver of all life and goodness, that he literally forced people to give praise and honor to his belief even if they did not believe the same as him. Because he was of higher power (a king), his people had no choice but to follow in his ways and believe in this sun God as well.

Ironically though back then in these times of Egyptian civilization, (look at this from the historical context now), many people of that time period had many different beliefs in many different Gods at one time. In the Egyptian civilization there were literally ‘made-up’ Gods for everything. There was a God for the sun, crops, health, animals, etc. And anyone could make a new God from a day to day basis. If someone strongly believed that a certain thing meant so much to them and had so much meaning to life, whatever it was, it could have been a piece of land for all that matters… they could make that their God. As long as you believed it had extreme value and was very important to you, you could worship that as your God and basically make that your entire religious belief. This is why it is not hard for me to believe that King Amenhotep believed so strongly in the sun and praised it so much, that he said it was a God and got his people to follow in his beliefs as well. That is just how the Egyptian culture is and that is how that same culture influenced the writing of this hymn as well. The Egyptian culture during this time period of history definitely had no boundaries when it came to creating and worshiping their different Gods, and this is exactly why this hymn so was influenced by the author’s culture and beliefs.

Puchner, Martin. “The Great Hymn to the Aten.” The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3^rd ed. Vol. A. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 29-33. Print.