The Ideal of the West, the Reality of the East. Towards a New Poetics of Ottoman Modernity in the Novels of "Edebiyat-ı Cedide"

Petr Kučera

doi:10.5565/rev/rubrica.140

Abstract

The article deals with the late Ottoman literary movement of New Literature (Edebiyat-ı Cedide) and asks what new conceptions of East and West there emerged in the Ottoman-Turkish novel at the turn of the century. Based on that, it tries to outline the connections of the new poetics of the novel developed by Edebiyat-ı Cedide to the Ottoman modernization process. The underlying argument of the paper is that West and East appear in these novels more as two states of mind than physical entities, as two poles of consciousness. The West becomes an elaborately crafted metaphoric space, serving as a backdrop onto which the authors, influenced by Romantic ideals, project the wounded, fragmented consciousness of their heroes. The East, on the other hand, turns into an anti-ideal, symbolizing triviality and mediocrity of the localness, stifling the novelists’ dreams and desires and hindering them from being carried away by their poetic genius. We further suggest that despite the purely artistic ambitions of these authors, their writings vividly and accurately capture the problems and tensions arising from the cultural transformation of the Ottoman Empire.

Highlights

(Little Things, 1891) Sâmipaşazâde Sezâi claims that nowadays novels –obviously referring to both the European and the Ottoman ones– “left behind their childish form of strange stories and odd narrations” (“garâib-i hikâyât ve acaib-i rivâyât”), are written in a “superb poetic style” and based on the “triumphs of science against the secrets of nature” and on the analysis of human heart and mind
We suggest that despite the ostentatious l’art-pour-l’art-ism of authors like Halit Ziya, Mehmet Rauf of Safveti Ziya, their writings vividly capture the problems and tensions arising from the cultural transformation of the Ottoman Empire, and could be studied for their undeniable literary qualities, and as a source for intellectual history or history of mentalities
They rather aimed at a harder to describe and less palpable domain of individual pleasure, esthetic satisfaction and spiritual self-realization in Western-like art and culture. These men of letters wanted to write novels, not Ottoman or local novels, and be part of the universal novelists’ experience, to contribute to the development of the art of the novel, not anymore bound by time and circumstances or social/didactic roles. They were not interested in creating an Ottoman version of naturalism, nor producing a national novel[35]; they were striving towards a complex acceptance of European literary tradition while remaining original in the sense of closely observing their own society and relying on their artistic talent

Summary

Petr KUČERA Universität Hamburg

In the introduction to his acclaimed collection of short stories called Küçük Şeyler (Little Things, 1891) Sâmipaşazâde Sezâi claims that nowadays novels –obviously referring to both the European and the Ottoman ones– “left behind their childish form of strange stories and odd narrations” (“garâib-i hikâyât ve acaib-i rivâyât”), are written in a “superb poetic style” and based on the “triumphs of science against the secrets of nature” and on the analysis of human heart and mind. These men of letters wanted to write novels, not Ottoman or local novels, and be part of the universal novelists’ experience, to contribute to the development of the art of the novel, not anymore bound by time and circumstances or social/didactic roles They were not interested in creating an Ottoman version of naturalism (as Ahmet Midhat in his Müşahedât, 189134), nor producing a national novel (as Mehmet Murat in his Turfanda mı Yoksa Turfa mı, 1891)[35]; they were striving towards a complex acceptance of European literary tradition while remaining original in the sense of closely observing their own society and relying on their artistic talent (in contrast to translating the West or moralizing and teaching). We will turn our attention to the question of what kind of West these new literati imagined and how this idea and its counterpart, the image of the East, were incorporated into their literary texts

The West as an ideal

Westernization of literary topography

Conclusion