Research Project: Reassessing Late Ottoman Literatures within a Mediterranean Framework
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Contributors
Funders
ID
EC.00110
Authors
Arslan, Ceylan Ceyhun
Faculty Member
Publications
Physician writers: hysteric poetry and the medicinal novel in Hayal ve Hakikat
(Akdeniz University, 2019) Arslan, Ceylan Ceyhun; Department of Comparative Literature; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
When the novel genre began to become popular in the Ottoman Empire, many authors such as Ahmet Midhat emphasized that the novel was fundamental for society. These writers made use of “non-literary” discourses, such as medicine, and formed a new value system for literature. To demonstrate the engagement of these writers with medicine, a close reading of Hayal ve Hakikat (Imagination and Truth; 1891) is provided, which was co-written by Ahmet Midhat and Fatma Aliye. In particular, the article analyzes the “Hysteria” section of Hayal ve Hakikat and historically contextualizes it through examining both the literary criticism and the medical works that were produced in the nineteenth century. It shows that some Ottoman writers who lived when the work was composed depict medicine and/or science as an ideal for literature, and it is argued that these depictions have shaped critical judgments on genres such as poetry and the novel. These writers could foreground the “seriousness” of the new literature through comparing the old divan poetry with a woman or a sick person. This article shows the intersections between the history of literature and the history of science at a time when the novel could be considered the source of a cure. / Roman türü Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda yaygınlaşmaya başladığında, Ahmet Midhat Efendi gibi pek çok yazar bu türün toplum için elzem olduğunu vurguladı. Bu yazarlar ayrıca tıp gibi “edebî olmayan” söylemlerden faydalanarak edebiyat için yeni bir değerler sistemi oluşturdu. Onların tıp ile etkileşimini ana hatlarıyla gösterebilmek için Ahmet Midhat Efendi’nin ve Fatma Aliye’nin ortak çalışması Hayal ve Hakikat (1891) eserinin yakın okumasını yapacağım. Makalem, Hayal ve Hakikat’teki “Histeri” kısmını tahlil edecek ve bu kısmı on dokuzuncu yüzyılda yazılmış eleştiri yazıları ile tıp kitaplarını inceleyerek tarihî bir bağlama oturtacaktır. Böylece, eserin yazıldığı dönemde yaşayan bazı yazarların tıbbı ve/veya fenni edebiyatın ulaşması gereken ideal olarak tasvir ettiğini vurgulayacak ve bu tasvirlerin şiir ve roman gibi türler hakkındaki değer yargılarını şekillendirdiğini savunacaktır. Bu yazarlar, yeni edebiyatın “ciddiliğini” ön plana çıkarmak adına divan şiirini bir kadına veya hastaya benzetirler. Makalem, romanın şifa kaynağı olarak algılanabildiği bir dönemin bilim tarihi ve edebiyat tarihi arasındaki kesişimleri gösterecektir.
Entanglements between the Tanzimat and al-Nahdah: Jurji Zaydan between Tarikh adab al-lughah al-turkiyyah and Tarikh adab al-lughah al-'arabiyyah
(Brill, 2019) Arslan, Ceylan Ceyhun; Department of Comparative Literature; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
This article analyzes comparisons between Arabic and Turkish literatures in literary histories from the late Ottoman period, with a particular focus on works by Jurji Zaydan (1861-1914). Drawing upon Alexander Beecroft's concept of "literary biomes," it argues that these comparisons overlooked intersections of Arabic and Turkish literatures in the "Ottoman literary biome" and depicted them as belonging to two separate "biomes." I define the "Ottoman literary biome" as the transcultural space of the Ottoman Empire that allowed the circulation of a multilingual textual repertoire and cultivated a cultural elite. Through foregrounding the transcultural context of Ottoman literary biome, I demonstrate that modern Arabic and Turkish literatures morphed in a reciprocal entanglement. My work finally calls for the fields of Arabic literature and comparative literature to further flesh out the diversity of literary biomes in which Arabic texts circulated.
