A Critical Overview of Epistemology of Tanzimat Literature: Duality and Teacher-Author / Student-Reader Relationship

Many intellectuals from Ziya G？kalp to Ahmet Hamdi Tanp？nar and Hilmi Ziya ülken to Mehmet Kaplan brought various interpretations on the intellectual structure and literary aesthetics of the Tanzimat period. These comments, along with the various theses they hold, often walk on the axis of “duality”. It is possible to say that this “postulat” is a concrete foundation when the literary and non-literary works received by the intellectuals of the Tanzimat period - and later periods - are taken into consideration. Jale Parla, in Babalar ve O？ullar (Tanzimat Roman？n？n Epistemolojik Temelleri), however, brought different interpretations of the intellectual universe of the Tanzimat period and concluded that the concept of “duality” is unfounded for such a universe; argued that in the works of the intellectuals and novelists of this period, the domesticated Western values of Oriental values - at least to Be？ir Fuad - were articulated without problems. In addition, this period embodies a similar relationship between the heroes of novels and novels and the readership of the “father-son” relationship, and indicates that the sultan, who was restricted by Tanzimat Ferman？ and the authority of the sultan, assumed the “father” of the society in this period and the romans and generally Tanzimat intellectuals. Undoubtedly, even if Parla’s theses are partially tangible, this period can be seen as a “falsifiable” position when the works of the novelists - and generally Tanzimat intellectuals - are taken into consideration. In this review, we will focus on the disproportionate aspects of the theses, and some determinations will be made on the author-reader relationship of the period