Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. Contents V
3. Part I: Background / Settings
4. 1 Arab perspectives on the late Ottoman Empire 1
5. 2 The simultaneity of the non-simultaneous 29
6. Part II: Linguistic aspects The language of the Nahḍa
7. 3 Morpho-semantic evidence of emerging subjectivity in the language of the Nahḍa 53
8. Part III: Transitions: Continuity and rupture New attitudes / genres in the making
9. 4 Adab as the art to make the right choice between local tradition and Western values: A comparative analysis of Khalīl al-Khūrī’s Way, idhan lastu bi-Ifranjī! (1859) and Aḥmed Midḥat’s Felāṭūn Beğ ile Rāḳım Efendī (1875) 83
10. 5 Concepts that changed the world 117
11. 6 What does it mean to design a plot? 133
12. 7 From water-carrying camels to modern storytellers 155
13. Part IV: The emerging subject seeking to assert itself
14. 8 Even in a maqāma! The shift of focus from “trickster” to “narrating subject” in Fāris al-Shidyāq’s al-Sāq ʿalà l-sāq (1855) 193
15. 9 The modern subject sensing its agency 212
16. 10 “Wa-hākadhā kāna ka-Iblīs”: Satan and social reform in a novel by Salīm al-Bustānī (Bint al-ʿaṣr, 1875) 235
17. 11 “Fa-ghrawraqat ʿuyūnuhum bi-l-dumūʿ...”: Some notes on the flood of tears in early modern Arabic fiction 242
18. Part V: The Nahḍa at its zenith Nation building and “Yes, we can!” enthusiasm
19. 12 A manifesto of early adab qawmī: ʿĪsà ʿUbayd’s programmatic preface to “Miss Ihsan” – Introduction and translation 263
20. 13 Maḥmūd Taymūr (1894–1973) 288
21. 14 The Modern School and global modernity: The example of an Egyptian ghost story of the mid-1920s (Maḥmūd Ṭāhir Lāshīn’s Qiṣṣat ʿifrīt 312
22. 15 Aspects of literary representation in Reşat Nuri Güntekin’s Çalıkuşu 339
23. Part VI: From “upswing” to crisis and demise: 100 years of Middle Eastern modernity – Thematic threads
24. 16 From the discovery of the “independent self” to its crisis: A condensed literary history of the agency of the subject in Middle Eastern modernity 355
25. 17 Fading trust in the Nahḍa: Three Middle Eastern utopias 376
26. Part VII: Turkish parallels
27. 18 The ‘riddle’ ʿAşḳ-ı memnūʿ: Towards assigning the S̱ervet-i Fünūn movement a place in literary history 397
28. 19 Early national literature in Turkey: Some authors and their novels 414
29. Bibliography 427
30. Publication history and acknowledgments 453
31. Index 457