Comparison as a Method of Literary Reappraisal in 19th Century Iranian and Ottoman Literary Criticism

The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the inception of modern literary criticism in Iran and the Ottoman Empire that occurred in the form of a reassessment of critical conventions. Traditional discourse on rhetorics as the basis of criticism was challenged by content-oriented and objective critical attitudes. The debates surrounding "naqd-e fanni" in Iran and "usul-i tenkid fenni" in the Ottoman Empire saturated literary scenes, enabling a historical observation: these debates were not only tied to imperial centres but resonated regionally. In their attempt to redefine the principles and tools of a modern literary criticism, critics often resorted to the acts of comparison undertaken among different literary traditions. This paper examines these comparative orientations that have thus far remained unacknowledged by contemporary literary critics. The defining question this paper seeks to answer is what prompted these comparative moves. In addition, I will pay due attention to the questions of to what end these comparisons were made; were any values attached to the practice?; can we speak of a homogenous group of comparatists or were there different camps? Instead of reiterating the argument that foregrounds French influence on Ottoman and Iranian literary traditions, I intend to draw attention to the self-reflexive agency of Ottoman and Iranian literary critics in their attempt to reset new critical measures for judging literary works. As I will demonstrate, Ottoman and Iranian critics did not succumb to French archetypes and conventions in their critical pursuits; they inspected their own literary tradition as well as literatures that they had been in contact for centuries. The encounter and engagement of Ottoman and Iranian critics with varied literary traditions, particularly French, is often defined in terms of "crisis", "turmoil", or "anxiety". In this paper I deliberately refrain from reading this process in negative terms. Rather, I prefer reading it as "conscious resistance" (in reference to the self-reflexive agency I mentioned above), "reappraisal", and "cultivation". Finally I propose to view mid-19th century Iranian and Ottoman literary critics as early comparatists of a new tradition. The convention within the discipline of comparative literature has been rooted in the idea that comparative literature is emerged from Europe. By foregrounding the practice of comparison as a critical endeavour in non-European modernities, I aim to challenge and offer another perspective to the accounts that tend to ascribe a Eurocentric genealogy to the discipline of comparative literature.