People Before Print: Gens de lettres, the Ottoman Printing Press, and the Search for Turkish Literature

Abstract

abstract:The advent of print at the Ottoman court in 1727 was greeted in France as the triumph of learning over Islamic ignorance. These initial reactions have shaped modern narratives about the Ottoman printing press, which center on the role of its founder, Müteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam. This article contextualizes these accounts by turning the focus to one of Müteferrika's French interlocutors, Peyssonnel. This latter's efforts to define Turkish literature demonstrate that the Republic of Letters subsumed the divisive question of print to that of the broader category of literature, which favored cultural continuities stemming from interpersonal relations.