From Fuad Bey to Monsieur Chartier:

Seven decades, three thousand kilometers and a horde of books

Some questions and rubrics for discussion:

1) Definitions and categorical/terminological issues; fields of academic study:

Histoire des mentalités (HDM, henceforth to denote “histoire des mentalités,” or “historiens des mentalités, depending on the context) was conceived as a historiographical reaction (against the pseudo-conscious and individually-oriented approach of intellectual history, as well as the dry vulgarity of economic and social history).

Thus Febvre's rhetorical question:

[C]an one reduce the frequently contradictory, often composite, and at any rate always changing ideas of a man or a milieu to the traditional categories used by the history of ideas (renaissance, humanism, reformation, and the like)? Such retrospective and classifying terms are bearers of contradictions, and they are not faithful to the lived psychological and intellectual experience of the time. (Chartier, 16)

To the extent of my understanding, HDM's viewpoint was thus fundamentally based on the historical and geographical specificity and the rejection of universal categories of thought, as the mental instruments (outils mentaux) available to certain groups of people in a particular geography and at a particular time determine, without their knowing it, the ways in which they perceive the world around them and the kinds of thoughts (and imaginations) they produce. These intellectual products, in turn, informs the kinds of transformations that will occur in such “mentalities.”

Unlike for historians of the intellectual, what is important to understand for historians of mentalities “is no longer the audacities of thought but the limits of what is thinkable.” (Chartier, 21 – my emphasis) [This seems to have influenced Bourdieu in conceptualizing the “habitus.”] Mentality is, in other words, what is “automatically,” immediately or intuitively (i.e. apparent without a thought process) possible or imaginable to the inhabitants of a certain time and space. The process described here is so immediate and “unthought” that it “escapes the individual subjects of history.” (Chartier, 22) It is thus also very impersonal, and, in that sense, very collective.

Real versus fictional:

HDM's most refreshing innovation was its claim that everything can and should be used as historical sources. This brings into question one of the fundamental distinctions between “factual” and fictional documents (i.e. archival sources versus literary texts). Chartier argues that even when a text is “documentary,” it should not be taken at face value, simply because it is textual. He argues that “[n]ever can the literary or documentary text deny itself as a text – that is, as a system constructed according to categories, schemas of perception and appreciation, rules of functioning that go back to the very conditions of its production. (Chartier, 39) To the contrary, Köprülü builds his argument on the need to distinguish between history and literary history based on a distinction between factual and literary. He states that “the subject with which historians are preoccupied is the past. There is such a past for which there are no historical works and only certain indirect traces and documents survive. By means of them, the historian will try to bring a scene from that past back to life. Our subject, however, deals not only with the past but also with the present; in other words, a past that has not finished but is continuing and flourishing before our very eyes.” (Köprülü, PN)

Is Köprülü's distinction a convincing one here? In other words, what is the difference between the different types of texts (literary and non-literary) in terms of the level of engagement it creates among its readers at different historical points. Is it as he claims it to be that documentary texts are more prone to “stay in the past,” whereas the “literary texts” are more likely to leave an impact on people across generations (and perhaps, even nations)? How should one connect this discussion to the concept of historical specificity at the core of HDM?

2) Historical specificity and accounting for the possibility of a “mental transformation”:

In relation to the notion of historical specificity (i.e. the fact that the historical period one lives in is a determining factor in one's actions and productions through the invisible yet eminent force of collective mentalities), one can discuss more in depth certain characteristics of “mentalities,” especially ones having to do with the ways in which they transform.

While Chartier draws attention to the notion of the “imaginable” or the “thinkable” in triggering slow and gradual transformation (Chartier, 41), LeGoff underlines the fact that, unlike technological advances, mentalities are slow to change. (LeGoff, 167) According to HDM, then, while mentalities are in constant, albeit slow, flux, there is not much room for sudden and bigger scale transformations. Köprülü, on the other hand, argues, decades earlier, that “Darwin's theory of evolution [claiming the prevalence of gradual change rather than unexpected actions in the history of the development of societies], after dominating all the natural and social sciences, with the support of Spencer and Karl Marx, and even after having truly important and continuous effect on sociology, has recently been somewhat shaken.” (Köprülü, 60) Instead, he suggests Bergson's notion of vital impetus (elan vital), and argues that there may be sudden and radical jumps in history. Can we then argue that Köprülü's point of view is in irreconciliable contradiction with the approach of HDM in terms of how the two perceive social change? If so, which one seems to be more convincing?

3) Geographical/national specificity:

Both Köprülü and HDM seem to argue for the significance of national specificity when writing history, in particular, of ideas. In fact, Chartier starts off his article pointing to the intranslatability of certain concept between different languages, forcing one “to recognize the inevitable rigidity of a given nation's way of considering historical questions.” (Chartier, 14) Similarly, Köprülü states that “just as there are certain differences in method, despite similarities and identities, on many points studying French history, for example, and Turkish history, the same differences in method will definitely also be seen between the study of the history of French literature and the history of our literature.” (Köprülü, 56) Does the emphasis on national specificity mean that a (synchronically) comparative history of mentalities cannot be done? [Note: On a purely practical/methodological level, HDM's care for detail (since mentalities are “concealed” in details) would orient it towards close readings of texts, contradicting Moretti's notion of “distant reading,” which the latter sees as the method to do comparative literary study. - Would it be fair, then, to say that Moretti and Annales are incompatible?]

4) Experimentation versus quantification versus epistemology

It is clear that quantification is very important to HDM, as an anti-elitist method. Statistics enable them not only to get beyond (and below) the upper classes, but also to better grasp “the collective, the automatic, the repetitive.” (Chartier, 24) While in the later generations of the Annales school, the heavy presence of quantification seems to slightly have subsided, it still remains in place. As for Köprülü, while his penchant for the scientific spirit leads him to consider the value of statistics in social sciences, where, unlike in natural sciences, experimentation is not possible (or not valuable), he is much more cautious about this strictly sociological method: he refers to Guyau (or Guyot?) who “rightly asserted that 'to attribute an absolute reality to statistics is to be ignorant of the entire method.'” (Köprülü, 63) This is also in line with Chartier's criticism of earlier generations of HDM who did not listen to epistomologists [like Koyre] and thus who have not picked up “the deep processes of transformation, which can be understood only by examining together the dependence and autonomy of the different fields of knowledge.” (Chartier, 31) Based on this discrepancy of opinions, how would one formulate the use of statistics (widely used in sociology) in the field of literary scholarship? Is it to be dismissed entirely or is there some benefit to it? What are the pitfalls of the works, like that of Bourdieu, that have applied quantification to literary studies?

5) Masterpieces versus “mediocre works”

Jacques LeGoff describes “the mentality of an individual” to be “what he has in common with other men of his time,” “although he may be a great man.” (qtd. in Chartier, 22) This was, in fact, one of the distinguishing aspects of HDM, one of its challenges against the intellectual history, which went on putting the emphasis on the “great men” of a certain period, as representatives of the “maximum possible consciousness of the social group” they belong to (Chartier on Lucien Goldmann, 27). One question that results from this contradiction is the function of “masterpieces” in literary history: While evaluating a period and going into its “mentalities,” are the literary historians going to look primarily at the “great works of art” produced by “great men” (whatever this may mean), or are they deliberately going to focus on the mediocre work of art, since the latter is more representative of the mentality of its time (although, according to LeGoff, masterpieces also do)?

According Köprülü, masterpieces are important in the sense that they represent the “national genius and the great personalities who opened the paths to the future, because a genius collects and represents within himself all the capabilities of the nation and all its hidden potentialities and prepares and reveals the shape of future.” In other words, while being inevitably impacted by the “mentalities” of its own time, a masterpiece would help constitute a relatively new set of mentalities. Can Köprülü's argument on masterpieces (i.e. "literary products that a class of readers at a certain time found to express their own spirit and inclinations and that they imitated and repeated") be interpreted as arguing (albeit within a nationalistic perspective) for the transformative power of “good” literature, seeing “masterpieces” as mental paradigm shifters?

6) Personal taste and historical taste (or, consumption versus production):

Chartier argues that the binary opposition between consumption and production is not only false but also misleading for literary analysis – he argues that “[t]o act as if texts (or images) had autonomous internal significance, beyond the readings that construct them, forces us, whether we like it or not, to trace texts back to our own intellectual (and sensorial) field. Thus, we are led to decode them through categories of thought whose historicity is never perceived and which present themselves implicitly as being permanent.” (Chartier, 36) In other words, as long as we perceive literary/artistic production and consumption as two incompatible phenomena, we, as literary scholars, are bound to read our own historically and geographically specific mentality into the works we analyze. Köprülü, on the other hand, argues that this phenomenon is inevitable anyway; the personal taste of the analyzer is bound to “creep into” his/her analysis; it is therefore better to be aware of it and to embrace it in order to be able to control it. Not only conscious of his/her own personal taste, the literary historians should also be able “to return to the life and biases of that period by thinking of the ideals that the artist served. In other words, the historian of literature should have not only personal taste, […] but also historical taste.” (Köprülü, 73) How would these two views (seemingly contradictory, but complementary to a certain extent) inform the literary studies that focus on perception and readership?

7) High literature versus low literature:

Another binary opposition Chartier argues against is that of “savant” versus “populaire,” or “high culture” versus “low culture.” He poses a series of questions that lead us to doubt the soundness of this distinction and claims that “the elite culture itself constituted in large measure by an operation on materials that do not properly belong to it.” (Chartier, 34) Yet, according to Köprülü, the differentiation between the court culture and the popular culture is an indispensable one for the Turkish context: “Among the Anatolian Turks,” he asserts, “literature, especially after Süleyman Çelebi (d.1411), […], was completely separate from the mass of the people and took the form of a special court literature for a very limited class under Byzantine and Persian influence. In other words, the creation of one literature among artists, another for the popular masses and another for the tekkes (dervish lodges), that is, prominent Sufis, begins to show the influence of cultural development.” (Köprülü, 65) Although elsewhere, he seems to be sharing HDM's whollistic (i.e. across classes) approach towards intellectual/literary history, he enthusiastically endorses the disconnectedness of the court. Does this constitute an awkward spot in his argumentation at all? Could we say the collective mentalities of the time affected him in certain ways, one decade before the foundation of the republic?

A final question on sources to be used:

LeGoff argues that “[t]he specificity of the history of mentalities lies rather in the approach than in the material, and any source can be useful. (173) But what kind of sources would lend themselves better to a history of mentalities? Why?

Chapter Three: The Market for Symbolic Goods

Leave a Mark (pp. 154-9)


Bourdieu begins this section by defining a "dialectic of distinction" by which all institutions and artists which have "'left their mark'" inevitably are displaced by subsequent institutions and artists.  This law of change in the field of production particularly ages producers locked in "patterns of perceptions or appreciation" or "institutional concepts" since these patterns or concepts become "canonized, academicized, and neutralized" with time.

Bourdieu asserts that the field is temporalized through this struggle "between the dominants whose strategy is tied to continuity, identity and reproduction, and the dominated, the new entrants, whose interest is in discontinuity, rupture, difference and revolution."  In other words, time or aging is produced after a rupture as each work moves up the chain and the following assumes the newly created vacancy.  Producers attempt "marks of distinction" and "signs of recognition" in an effort to sustain the moment of dominance.  Galleries and publishing houses are similarly temporalized, aging from the avant-garde to the consecrated.  In this "field of present" those struggling are "simultaneously contemporaries and temporally discordant" because of their different artistic ages.  See Figure 6 (p. 159) in which Bourdieu illustrates the "temporality of the field of artistic production."

Chapter Two: The Emergence of a Dualist Structure

The Invention of the Intellectual (pp. 129-131)

In this section Bourdieu argues that Zola successfully avoided the standard discredit and associations with vulgarity implied by commercial success through the production of the intellectual.  This intellectual was "inseparably intellectual and political" and applied the norms and values of independence in the literary field to the political field.  In other words, the autonomy of the intellectual field enabled Zola's intervention in the political field which, consequently, produced him as an intellectual.

Zola's "J'accuse" and intellectual production resulted from "a collective process of emancipation that is progressively carried out in the field of cultural production."  Unlike a politician, the intellectual acts independently of powers and is constituted through the act of political intervention "in the name of autonomy" and the values of cultural production.  Bourdieu contrasts this intellectual with the eighteenth-century writer, who he sees as divorced of politics and theology; the legislator; and the intellectual who switches to the political field and betrays the values of his original intellectual field.  Instead, this intellectual "asserts himself against the specific laws of politics . . . as defender of universal principles that are in fact the result of the universalization of the specific principles of his own universe."

This invention of the intellectual by Zola resulted not only from the "autonomization of the intellectual field" but also from the opposition to the reintroduction of the political field in the intellectual field.  Bourdieu argues that "it is by relying on the specific authority conquered in opposition to politics by pure writers and artists that Zola and the scholars produced by the development of higher education and research will be able to break with the political indifference of their predecessors in order to intervene, during the Dreyfus Affair, in the political field itself, but with weapons that are not those of politics."

Bourdieu concludes by presenting Zola's defense of Manet.  He claims that the same principles, "the sake of honour and truth," which led Zola to compose a written defense of Manet also compelled him to intervene in the political field.

Questions:
1.  Was there a similar distancing and development of autonomy that enabled an independent intervention in the political field by a Turkish author?  Are their any Turkish authors analogous to Zola?
2.  Could this process be applied to modern American politics and interventions made by Stewart and Colbert?

Chapter 3 The Market for Symbolic Goods

The Modes of Ageing (pp 146-154)
Bourdieu after starting the chapter 3 with explaining 2 modes of production (heteronomous market-driven and autonomous art for art’s sake poles), he dwells more on the ‘economic’ logic of the literary and artistic industries, which falls in the heteronomous pole. In the section called “Two modes of ageing”, he divides the “economic” logic of the literary market into two binaries as well. There are two life cycles of the enterprise of cultural production, one is short and the other one is long. He explains the strategies of publishing houses for these short (bourgeois) and long (avant-garde) cycles. Among the short production cycles, it is necessary to have space for agents and institutions of “promotion” in order to circulate the information about the products and distribute them equally. Bourdieu claims that smaller publisher houses target for long production cycles which lend itself into “talent-spotting” instead of publisher as being a business person or purely merchant, they become discoverer of talent. Within the economic logic of literary market, publishers that are divided into two poles within this heteronomous field constitute a battle, which takes between bestsellers with no tomorrow and classics or bestsellers over the long run. Short cycle, profit seeking bourgeois publishing (also identified as seeking for economic capital) is interested in immediate success, whereas long cycle, avant-garde publishing (also identified as seeking for cultural capital) claiming an intellectual foreground seeks for long term success and skeptic with immediate success. Furthermore, Bourdieu complicates his argument by including ageing to the midst of aforementioned argument. He first starts exemplifying painting and art galleries and turns his attention to authors and publishers in case of ageing. In the field of cultural capital and production, avant-garde firms turn their gaze to youth in order to barrow its resistance to bourgeois seriousness. Money and power that is associated with the bourgeois is associated with the “old” since age and power grows correspondingly. The intellectual and artist associated with cultural capital and publishers resists getting “old” in this sense.

Chapter 2 The Emergence of a Dualist Structure

The Dialectic of Distinction (pp 126-127)
Bourdieu suggests from the readings of the era, the last half of 19th century, is an era of action and reaction. In other words, every agent of an action constitutes this position as a result of reaction. He shows binary oppositions between literary and cultural production, mostly wholesale reactions against to each other.
Specific Revolutions and External Changes (pp 127-128)
Bourdieu asserts that in case of struggle between possessors of specific capital and those who don’t, either of these poles can draw an external support in order to overthrow the current hierarchy of genres, authors, and schools. This external support is mostly political and economic but furthermore it is the change of conditions in literary market that genres are produced and consumed. Expansion in the economy and the increase in educated population played a detrimental role in this process. Increase in these areas opened new spaces for people to make money with their pen and population to read these works and consume. In order to exemplify his claim, Bourdieu shows the example of rise and fall of Naturalism in the second half of 19th century. What brought Naturalist movement into foreground during 1860s also caused the movement to overturn after 1880s. Once the condition of preceding era changes or disappears the balances change in the literary arena that enables struggle for shifting genres or authors and creates new set of hierarchies.

Chapter 1 The Conquest of Autonomy: The Critical Phase in the Emergence of the Field

Baudelaire the Founder (pp 60-68)
In this part, Bourdieu show Baudelaire and Flaubert’s alienation from the mainstream public, especially by arguing Baudelaire’s positioning almost as a heroic character that challenges the moralities of his time. Instead Baudelaire brings in his own set of moral indignations as Bourdieu says “against all forms of submission to the forces of power and to the market”. The motivation behind Baudelaire’s is to gain a degree of autonomy in literary and artistic field and as a result with his contemporaries like Flaubert, he achieves “to formulate clearly the canons of the new legitimacy” (62). By working with a small scale of publishing house, Baudelaire clearly manifests that his work (Les Fleurs du mal) is not going to be subjected to the masses but only to those who appreciate his artistic principles.
Positions and Dispositions (pp 85-87)
In this section Bourdieu argues about ambiguous positions of authors, who are champions of “art for art’s sake” and their relationship with their fathers as detrimental factor of their social trajectories. Aristocratic dispositions determine these “talented bourgeoisie” and “traditional nobility” in their alienation to “social art” by reducing them to mere merchants and facile entertainments.
Flaubert’s relationship with his father and his elder brother constitutes his social disposition and his contradictory relationship with his brother constitutes his position as an artist who is critical of bourgeois art. It’s only in the footnotes, Bourdieu compares Baudelaire’s position that is slightly different than Flaubert’s. Bourdieu claims that authors’ relationship with their male members of their family, for Flaubert his relationship with his father and elder brother, for Baudelaire his relationship with his father-in-law, became detrimental effect in their poor relationship with bourgeoisie art as well as their social position as a member of bourgeoisie. On one hand, Flaubert and his father shared a similar literary taste, unlike Baudelaire whose father-in-law looked down on his passion for literature. On the other hand, Flaubert had to compete with his elder brother, who exceeded him academically and took a path that was more acceptable in order to be considered as “successful”. Bourdieu calls Flaubert’s position as a “paternal curse” and hypothesizes that his desire to search for “pure art” comes from his conflict with his family.

Bourdieu - The Rules of Art (Chapter 1)

THE CONQUEST OF AUTONOMY in THE RULES OF ART: GENESIS AND STRUCTURE OF THE LITERARY FIELD, trans. Susan Emanuel, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995

In the first chapter to his The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (trans. Susan Emanuel, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), Bourdieu starts off laying out the dynamics of an emerging (literary) field as the sociopolitical forms of domination have changed in the late 19^th century. Through this mapping, he aims to better understand or display the social conditions of this literary transformation, as a result of which literature was constituted as “a world apart, subject to its own laws,” particularly in the works of people like Baudelaire and Flaubert (the latter's L'education Sentimentale was the subject matter of the introductory chapter). This chapter thus stands in a central position in Bourdieu's attempt to challenge the argument of the disconnect between society and literature as a pure art that does not lend itself to social analysis.

A structural subordination

With the appearance of the bourgeois, whom Bourdieu describes to be a self-made man, “an uncultured parvenu” with poor taste, artists and writers found themselves subjected to a new power field that sought to establish an artistic field in line with its vision of the world, one that is “profoundly hostile to intellectual things triumph within the whole society.” As the more easily readable and immediately entertaining feuilleton (serialized novel) replaced the more metaphorical and difficult-to-interpret poem as the most sought-after form of literature by the bourgeois, the aristocratic salon culture of the previous century (which either established links through direct financial dependence or provided other types of protection through the artist's allegiance) gave way to what Bourdieu terms a “structural subordination,” where artists had to respond to a market dynamic where artistic value was determined through either sales value or positions secured within the field of journalism, or subscription to a value system dictated by the above-mentioned bourgeois tastes. In other words, accumulation of economic capital had become very difficult if not impossible for an artist outside these predetermined conditions. While the salon culture continued to provide an alternative, albeit weak, to these conditions, it was very much “stained” by, and rendered secondary to the requirements of a bourgeois market. It is thus within this framework that Bourdieu locates Flaubert and Baudelaire as the proponents of “pure art,” which he does not at all see as a politically detached form of art, but to the contrary, one that responds and reacts to this new order through its refusal to submit to these new dynamics. What thus seems to be challenging for such rebels is not only the necessity for an already existing economic capital that would allow them to operate independently of the market but also the difficulty to obtain what Bourdieu calls the symbolic capital (accumulated prestige, celebrity, consecration and honor) as the prize-giving or recognition-providing institutions were increasingly becoming connected to (and often dependent on) the political ruling class.

Questions that can be addressed to this particular sub-section:

- Wasn't the salon of the 18^th century subject to similar hierarchy of tastes as far as who is paying is concerned? Is Bourdieu romanticizing the past a bit here?

Week 5/5. Hafta: Additional Questions

How would you explain Tanzimat writers’ understanding of western novel in relation to meddah stories? What would you make of Berna Moran’s comparison between “romans” and “meddah stories” as the universal form of narrations?

What do you make of Okay’s argument on how Ottoman intellectuals during the 19th century approach prose as merely an esthetic, whereas prose as scientific/reasoning tool?

Week 4/4. Hafta: Discussion

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

XIX. Asir Turk Edebiyati Tarihi (19th century Turkish Literary History), Istanbul: Yapi Kredi Yayinlari, 2006.

Chapters:

“Garplilasma hareketine umumi bir bakis”

“XIX. asrin ilk yarisinda Turk edebiyati”

“Tanzimat Seneleri”

“Yeniligin Uc Buyuk Muharriri”

Outline:

1) A general outline of the Westernization movement

- This section is divided in three parts, the French Revolution (1789), the Kabakci Rebellion and the deposition of Selim III (1807) being the main historical divides. The period between 1807 and 1826 is left out without specified reason.

2) Turkish literature in the first half of the 19^th century (until the declaration of Tanzimat Edict in 1839)

- This section is divided into two main parts, namely “poetry” and “prose.” The “poetry” section, in its turn, contains two main sub-sections, “Divan poetry” and “folk poetry.” In the “prose” section, on the other hand, provides information on the changes in the state language, the emergence and development of journalism, history writing, autobiographies and finally, travel writings of Ottoman state officials.

3) Cultural and ideological transformation during the Tanzimat years (1839-1876)

- This section is again parted in two, the first sub-section covering the period from 1839 until the Islahat Edict, and the second until 1876. In addition to an evaluation of the nature of reform movements, Tanpinar talks about the tension between what he calls the “old” and the “new,” as well as the first European genres penetrating into the Ottoman literary circles.

4) Pioneers of change

- As the title tells it all, this section is dedicated to three Ottoman intellectuals, whom Tanpinar perceives to be at the root of the systemic cultural move towards the West; Ahmed Cevdet Pasa, Munif Pasa and Ibrahim Sinasi Efendi.

Summary:

Tanpinar starts off his account of the first Westernization movements by contrasting the nature of the relationship with Europe before and after the 18^th century. He argues that, prior to the rule of Ahmed III, interactions between the Ottoman Empire and European countries were mostly mercantile, and that any cultural/artistic traits that were almost accidentally imported along with commercial goods, quickly lost their identities, being assimilated within the “great and highly disciplined entity” called the “Islamic civilization and culture.” (52, my translation) In fact, as a historical background to the civilizational transition he will tell us about, Tanpinar makes the contrast between Europe and Ottoman Empire quite clearly at the very beginning of his narration.

“In short, at the beginning of the 18^th century, there was an Ottoman Empire, whose scientific life was stopped, whose economic power was completely ruined as a result of continuous wars and rebellions, an empire that had long forgotten the miracle of progress, in the face of a Europe that had broken free from the scholastic thought and embraced Renaissance values, and that multiplied its area of production with the discovery of America and the effective utilization of much of the old world.” (53)

Late 17^th and early 18^th centuries mark the beginnings of an emerging curiosity, among Ottomans, towards a much better-off Europe, with the travel writings of Evliya Celebi in the 17^th and Yirmisekiz Celebi Mehmed Efendi in the 18^th centuries. Consequently, French and European tastes started penetrating into the Ottoman capital.

On a more administrative level, Tanpinar points out that the first attempts of Westernization occurred on a military level during the reign of Selim III. This period is, according to him, the second phase of “our journey towards the West,” during which Westernization/Europeanization became a main concern in relation to state institutions. Going hand in hand with the further diffusion of European fashions among the wealthy Muslim families in Beyoglu, Bogazici and Tarabya, military clothing and appearance is also renovated. Tanpinar perceives this kind of imitation as a positive phenomenon that “resulted in the appropriation of a new mentality,” and that consequently “changed the lifestyle of the society.” (74) In his hopeful vision of shallow mimicry, change in the form/appearance would eventually lead to change in content/mentality.

Following the initial military reforms of Selim III period, Europeanization was officially declared as the main state agenda in 1839, as a further step, in Tanpinar’s words, towards “another civilizational circle.” That is also the period when the opinion of a religiously oriented people started becoming a matter of anxiety among the pro-reformation elite circles. The post-Tanzimat Edict period is also when the history of 19^th century Turkish literature starts, according to Tanpinar, who gives no information whatsoever on the literature of the previous decades. Nevertheless, the first half of the century witnessed a dissolving of the “old” rather than the creation of anything “new” in the literary world. Indeed, Tanpinar argues that literature lacked “the main idea that would organize its disorganized experience and that would redirect its movements.” Just like the idea of the imitation, however, Tanpinar recognizes the potential within the dissolution, and perceives it as “rich with the future possibilities.” It is in fact surprising to see that the longing for a non-existent future is as prevalent in Tanpinar as it is in Koprulu, who writes roughly three decades earlier in a pre-Republican setting.

The anxieties of dissolution, “l'angoisse du néant,” as Tanpinar would put it in his inclination to overuse French terms, mark the Divan poetry of this period, some of the significant examples being Akif Pasa’s “Adem Kasidesi,” (Ode to Nihility) and Izzet Molla’s “Mihnet-i Kesan” (The Misery of Kesan). As a matter of fact, these literary works are the manifestations of the crisis brought along by the “birth of the individual,” who wants to break free from the figurative constraints of the classical poetry. On the other hand, the folk poetry, also exhausted from its centuries-old imagery, was employing elements of the former in an attempt of self-renovation. It can therefore easily be argued that Tanpinar sees the two poetic genres converging towards each other to escape an unavoidable fate.

Unlike poetry, which carries with itself a loaded baggage of cultural obsoleteness, prose was the domain of innovation. As Tanpinar argues, the simplification of the Turkish language occurs within prose, i,e, first in the administrative language, and then, the language of the newspaper, a medium of utmost importance for Ottoman modernization. With the foundation of Tercume Odasi (the Bureau of Translation) and the first publication of Takvim-i Vekayi (Calendar of Events – the first Ottoman official gazette) in 1832, the general inclination towards the West was strengthened by expanding its scope towards the community. This expansion would later change the nature of the Westernization movement by shifting the center of power from the elite circles towards the people, the very much feared “public opinion” (efkar-i umumiye). The didactic tone rooted in the textual production of those institutions would characterize the general attitude of much of the Tanzimat literature.

Historical texts are mentioned as another significant type of prose writing during this time. However, according to Tanpinar, their importance stems from their accurate representation of “a very local reaction against certain serious events.” (111) He asserts that “the conception of history is no different than before.” (113) As for the personal memoirs, they seem to join others in reflecting and replicating the predominant aura of dissolution (e.g. Abdulhak Molla, Tarih-i Liva; Akif Pasa, Tabsira) In fact, it is only when the falling apart becomes emergent that a more meaningful shift seems to have occurred on the textual level. The emergency of the situation, as presented by Tanpinar, is reflected in Sadik Rifat Pasa’s style of looking at Europe in “Avrupa Ahvaline Dair Risale” (A Treatise on the Conditions in Europe).

“He is not any more the traveler who brings his naïve admiration in everywhere he goes, and who neglects the very essence of the things. To the contrary, he looks for the underlying systems and secrets behind the energy that gives direction and conscience to this life, in a way to see beyond the immediate appearances.” (119)

The gradual systemization of the “urge” to change does in fact form the general framework of Tanpinar’s view of the 19^th century. He clearly associates the progress of modernization with the creation and improvement of a well-organized/systematic approach rather than random efforts to alter certain aspects of society. That is also why the Tanzimat Edict of 1839 and the Islahat Edict of 1856 both have a central place in his narrative, as clearly defined agendas for transformation that are to be disseminated through newspapers, literary text, and other types of textual medium. As Mustafa Sami Efendi remarks, writing becomes a crucial way to do public good during this period, equaling if not surpassing the construction of, say, new mosques and bridges.

As apparent from the very beginning of this narrative, this radical transition is not without problems. The methods of transcending the old, namely criticism and comparison, inevitably lead to the creation of a tense duality between the old and the new, which, according to Tanpinar, determines the fate of Tanzimat. The optimism towards imitation as a behavioral pattern during the preliminary interactions with Europe leaves its place to a rather gloomy view of the shallowness still prevalent a few decades later. The creative source of life was dried up. However, as mentioned earlier, a gradual systemization of the political, social and cultural movement towards the West was also taking place. Tanpinar mentions three names as the main pioneers who took big steps towards laying the foundation of a certain intellectual condiition necessary to keep following the track of Westernization, namely Ahmed Cevdet Pasa (b.1822), Mehmed Munif Pasa (b.1828) and Ibrahim Sinasi Efendi (b.1826). A common trait to all three of them is to have, within their educational past, both what Tanpinar calls the old and the new. Another one, in line with the former, is an apparent lack of talent, or rather a self-sacrificial giving up of the poetic beauty for intellectual depth. Sinasi, in particular, is praised for his innovative approach to language, utilization of realist traits and rejection of the old system of imagination, “at the expense of seeming primitive and poor in style.” (182) In other words, despite the lack of aesthetics, his oeuvre is given a prominent position within a Turkish literature that did not exist prior to the 19^th century. Indeed, Tanpinar clearly puts that “prose begins with him,” overlooking his own rejection of everything that came before.

Criticism:

1) In his book entitled “History of Turkish Literature in the 19^th Century,” Tanpinar talks about literature only in relation to the post-1839 period. Events prior to this date are in turn presented as occurrences that merely led to the creation of a literature from scratch. One thus may conclude that Tanpinar rejects the inherent qualities of the textual production before Westernization, denying it its literariness.

2) Tanpinar’s approach towards Sinasi clearly illustrates the duality in his own psyche towards the literature of this period: He attributes to him the title of the “founding father” for Turkish literature, yet, at the same time, denies him all literary talent. A similar inconsistency can be observed in his evaluation of Divan poetry: He simultaneously argues that it is organically connected to people/life (181) and that it is impossible to talk about the presence of people in literature prior to Sinasi. (201) Trying to promote the Westernization in form and content, he cannot entirely give up the enjoyment he takes from Divan literature. Old poetry therefore becomes his guilty pleasure and a factor that undermines the coherence of his argumentation.

3) Another inconsistent argument in his analysis has to do with the issue of imitation. Tanpinar asserts that gradual progress towards the West can be triggered by mere imitation. It is therefore not a negative phenomenon, at least in the beginning of the process, since it will eventually lead to the creation of an intellectual basis for that imitation. However, he also claims that “Western civilization” is in its current state as a result of the ways in which it has been evolving for centuries with its own dynamics, without an abrupt and artificial interruption from elsewhere. The contrast between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, which Tanpinar himself points to at the beginning of his book, seems to weaken the imitation argument.

4) On a more structural level, the abundance of subsections and the repetition of the same historical events in relation to different aspects of his argument weaken the general organization, making the text highly difficult to follow. However, it is undeniable that those chapters provide invaluable bibliographic source for the “rookies of the field.”

Week 4/4. Hafta: Questions: Answers

Here are my answers two of the questions that Zeynep raised.

What do you make of Tanpinar’s conceptualization of the change in question? Is imitation seen as a defective response to Western influence or a necessary step to attain a new (and ideal) condition? Or neither of those, for that matter?

I would argue that Tanpinar’s conceptualization of change is a “necessary” step for the condition of Western “modernization” that leads to an imitation of the West, which is defected because of the ambiguity of the West and East duality. The condition of Eastern intellectual under Westernization (or in colonialization), is disrupted by his own ambivalence between the ghost of the past and the unforeseeable future. The past is not only dead but also its content is emptied and what is left for the “modernizing” intellectual to figure out is to how to make it possible to transform from that past into a future. That is how the intellectual that is indeed the Orientalist while facing his own Oriental past barrows the language of the West. “In the Eastern Islamic civilization, the person does not change, he shrinks among the values, which loses their liveliness.” (p 82) says Tanpinar while cheering for Tanzimat intellectuals who breaks this “fixity” of unchanging pattern. However, Tanpinar neglects pre-Tanzimat conditions in terms of change in the empire. He limits his arguments of pre Tanzimat period and the mode of change (implying change towards modernization/westernization) in Tanpinar’s case is the commercial relationship with the west. On the other hand, he does not underline how political and social changes in Europe are reflected in the Ottoman Empire before this period due to the fact that such an argument would not fit in his claims on “unchangeable” Eastern subject of the west. When he starts arguing about the 19th century Turkish literature he is determined to show this “unchanging” mentality exhausted the old literature, the need for change in order to recover from this decline is the “mission” of Tanzimat intellectuals. The cure for Tanpinar comes from the West, imitation of it. But how to imitate West will be the biggest problem of Tanzimat writers who are torn apart between the East and the West.

What do you make those chapters in terms of their relation to the discipline of literary history? Do they occasionally seem to be a history of Ottoman Empire in the 19th century rather than a history of Turkish literature? Should the shift towards literature for the post-1856 period tell us something about Tanpinar’s underlying assumptions?

The period before 1856 appears to be a history of Ottoman Empire rather than literary history due to the fact that Tanpinar argues that the literary movement up until this point as a part of a dead object of old literature. The references he makes show the examples of old literature’s decaying. That is why Tanpinar’s argument regarding pre-Tanzimat period is limited to the relationships with the west and its political and military dimension. Tanpinar’s historical approach to the connections between Ottoman Empire with the West pre-1856 is limited with commercial relationships, yet there are travel books and memories of high rank officials who are enslaved during the 17th and 18th century, which reflects the observations of Europe back in time. However, Tanpinar does not necessarily take these into account because they belong to a past time where he wants to draw a line with today and the problem is that past haunts today; that is why Tanpinar’s underlying assumptions of that past is stabilized through such a discourse, which would not let his readers have such access. Tanpinar’s selection of people to exemplify his claims seems to reflect what he wants to prove accordingly to the way he views the old literature. As a result he makes generalizations out of small examples.

M.

Week 4/4. Hafta: Questions

• imitation, critique, systemization/synthesis, diffusion of ideas / taklid ve tenkid, yeni kelime ve terkipler, efkar-i umumiye

What do you make of Tanpinar’s conceptualization of the change in question? Is imitation seen as a defective response to Western influence or a necessary step to attain a new (and ideal) condition? Or neither of those, for that matter?

• literature and life

How does Tanpinar see the relationship between literature and life? Does he claim that what he calls “old literature” lacked a connection to “life,” or could the kind of arguments he makes about this issue be formulated in a different way? What kind of role does literary pleasure play in this equation that involves literature and life, if any?

• historiography and canonization: the issue of masterpieces

What is Tanpinar’s approach to the historiography of the 19^th century Turkish literature? Does his selection of people, events or literary works seem arbitrary? What can be retrieved of his work on the issue of canonization? Can we think about this having Koprulu’s remarks on masterpieces in mind?

• Eurocentrism; disciplinary approaches

What do you make those chapters in terms of their relation to the discipline of literary history? Do they occasionally seem to be a history of Ottoman Empire in the 19^th century rather than a history of Turkish literature? Should the shift towards literature for the post-1856 period tell us something about Tanpinar’s underlying assumptions?

Week 4/4. Hafta: Suggested Reading

- Adivar, Abdulhak Adnan, Osmanli Turklerinde ilim, Istanbul: Maarif Matbaasi, 1943.

- Ahmet Cevdet Pasa, Tarih-i Cevdet, Istanbul: Ucdal nesriyat, 1983.

- Ahmet Cevdet Pasa, Tezakir, Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1953-1967.

- Ahmet Rasim, Matbuat tarihine medhal : ilk büyük muharrirlerden Şinasi, Istanbul: Yeni Matbaa, 1927.

- Gercek, Selim Nuzhet, Turk matbaaciligi, Istanbul: Matbaa-i Abu al-Ziya, 1928.

- Ibrahim Sinasi, Terceme-i manzume, Ankara: Dun-Bugun Yayinevi, 1960.

- Namik Kemal, Tahrib-i harabât : Ziya Paşa merhumun Harabât unvanlı eserini muahızdır, Konstantiniye: Matbaa-ı Ebuzziya, 1304.

Week 4/4. Hafta: Reading(s)

- Tanpinar, Ahmet Hamdi, “Garplilasma hareketine umumi bir bakis,” “XIX. asrin ilk yarisinda Turk edebiyati,” “Tanzimat Seneleri,” “Yeniligin Uc Buyuk Muharriri,” XIX. asir Turk edebiyati tarihi, Istanbul: Yapi Kredi Yayinlari, 2006.

Week 4/4. Hafta: Supporting document – Timeline: list of Ottoman Sultans (reigning in late-18th and 19th centuries)*

- Mustafa III: from October 30^th, 1757 to January, 21^st, 1774

- Abdülhamid I: from January 21^st, 1774 to April 7^th, 1789

- Selim III: from April 7^th, 1789 to May 29^th, 1807 (deposed)

- Mustafa IV: from May 29^th, 1807 to July 28^th, 1808 (deposed)

- Mahmud II: from July 28^th, 1808 to July 1^st, 1839

- Abdülmecid I: from July 1^st, 1839 to June 25^th, 1861

- Abdülaziz: from June 25^th, 1861 to May 30^th, 1876 (deposed)

- Murad V: from May 30^th, 1876 to August 31^st, 1876 (deposed)

- Abdülhamid II: from August 31^st, 1876 to April 27^th, 1909 (deposed)

*… with hopes that this “wikipedic” bit of knowledge will help you guys with this week’s reading.

*questions/tentative discussion topics for this week’s readings coming up tomorrow…