Entanglements between the Tanzimat and al-Nahdah: Jurji Zaydan between Tarikh adab al-lughah al-turkiyyah and Tarikh adab al-lughah al-'arabiyyah

Abstract

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.