Abstract
A Forgotten Apology of Ottoman Poetry from the pen of J. W. Redhouse: “Turkish Poetry”
This article analyses J. W. Redhouse’s article “On the
History, System and Varieties of Turkish Poetry” (1879),
the first comprehensive work on Ottoman poetry in the
West after the works of Josef von Hammer-Purgstall’s
Geschichte der Osmanischen Dichtkunst (1836–8), M.
Servan de Sugny’s La Muse Ottomane (1853) and Dora
d'Istria’s La poésie des Ottomans (1877). Redhouse’s article
responded to the negative representation of Turks who
were portrayed as “barbarians” by certain writers of his
time. Redhouse aims to change these negative perceptions
of Turks and thereby puts forward the first critical study
on the historiography of Ottoman poetry. In this piece, I
examine the context and discourse of Redhouse’s “Turkish
Poetry”. I will also examine the main motivations of the
Western literary corpus on Ottoman literature and the
contribution of Redhouse’s article to this corpus.
Keywords