Ceyhun Arslan’s monograph, “The Ottoman Canon and the Construction of Turkish and Arabic Literatures” (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) is a comparative overview of how Ottoman Turkish and Arabic texts contribute to the body of work that can be described as the “Ottoman canon” or the “Ottoman literary reservoir.” The book utilizes the practice of close textual reading of Ottoman Turkish and Arabic primary sources within the Tanzimat in the Ottoman context, and the nahda in the Arab context. Arslan analyzes these texts through their common themes and “afterlives,” independent from geographical location, literary movements, or historical time period, and in conversation with each other. In showing how the Turkish and Arabic texts engaged with each other, and with the larger Ottoman canon, Arslan exposes the literary and cultural domains that do not necessarily align with political power hierarchies. He then calls for rewriting literary history by moving beyond nationalist and disciplinary divisions (such as classical vs. modern or Arabic vs. Turkish) and by recognizing the multilingual, imperial, and translational character of the Ottoman canon.
