French as Language of Intimacy in the Modern Age Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Le français langue seconde, langue de la relation intime, de la relation à soi et à l’autre
- Part I From French as a Language of the Bilingual Netherlands to the ‘Language of Universality’ in a Wider Europe (Sixteenth – Eighteenth Centuries): Du français langue du bilinguisme aux Pays-Bas à la ‘langue de l’universalité’ dans l’Europe élargie (seizième – dix-huitième siècles)
- Part II The Use of French as a Second Language: From Continuity to Geographical Growth (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries): De l’utilisation du français langue seconde. De la continuité à l’expansion géographique (dix-neuvième – vingtième siècles)
- Index
9 - Writing in French: İzzet Melih Devrim (1887-1966) and his Leïla (1912)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Le français langue seconde, langue de la relation intime, de la relation à soi et à l’autre
- Part I From French as a Language of the Bilingual Netherlands to the ‘Language of Universality’ in a Wider Europe (Sixteenth – Eighteenth Centuries): Du français langue du bilinguisme aux Pays-Bas à la ‘langue de l’universalité’ dans l’Europe élargie (seizième – dix-huitième siècles)
- Part II The Use of French as a Second Language: From Continuity to Geographical Growth (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries): De l’utilisation du français langue seconde. De la continuité à l’expansion géographique (dix-neuvième – vingtième siècles)
- Index
Summary
Abstract
İzzet Melih was an Ottoman author who lived during the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Born in Jerusalem in 1887, he spent the most of his life in İstanbul and, like many intellectuals of that time was scholar at Galatasaray High School, following the French educational model. He began from a young age to publish prose poetry, short stories, literary reviews and criticism in İstanbul (in Çocuklara Mahsus Gazete (‘Children’s Newspaper’), Mecmua-i Edebiye (‘Literary Magazine’), in bilingual magazines (Levant Herald and Stamboul), and in French magazines such as La Revue de France. İzzet Melih also wrote a play in French, Leïla, which was first published in France in 1912. This chapter analyses this interesting example, considering why Melih preferred writing in French, pursuing the relationship and/or lack of relationship between his ‘self’ and his choice of writing in French with this ‘self’.
Keywords: Modern Turkish Literature, Ottoman Theatre, İzzet Melih Devrim, Leïla, Writing in French
In the Ottoman Empire, French has always been more prominent than other European languages. This state of visibility has managed to exist in different periods, forms and effects. During the rise and growth of the Ottoman Empire, French had only a limited usage in domains such as the medium of instruction in the schools founded by non-Muslim Armenian, Jewish and Greek Ottoman subjects. It was also the means of communication through newspapers and journals, and also used among the Levantines who travelled, traded and even lived in the Ottoman capital. With the increase of commercial and political interaction with France in the era of Kanuni Sultan Suleyman, whom the French addressed as ‘Suleyman the Magnificent’, French became the diplomatic language of the Ottoman Empire. After a long period of stagnation, the Ottoman Empire experienced a reformation in the nineteenth century. French became increasingly visible in social and cultural fields when the Ottomans inaugurated military, political, cultural and social reforms in order to survive among other states of the ‘new world order’ such as France, Germany and England.
The proclamation of the Imperial Edict of Gulhane on 3rd November 1839 was a milestone in the Ottoman Empire's relationship with the West.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- French as Language of Intimacy in the Modern AgeLe français, langue de l'intime à l'époque moderne et contemporaine, pp. 187 - 204Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2016