Q&A session

It was a busy summer: a couple of pre-dissertation research trips, one to the UK and one to Uzbekistan; a French readings class; work at the research institute; class preparation for the Fall; and  reading for Quals. It was probably *too* busy, but I achieved a couple of major goals, namely finally fulfilling my coursework requirements, and then taking - and passing - my Qualifying exams, which means - paperwork aside - I am essentially ABD (all but dissertation).

This semester I'll be working with our professor of Persian literature on a study of نوائی's Persian divan, and specifically his responses (جواب) to the غزلs of, inter alia, جامی، خسرو دهلوی and حافظ. The responses usually fall within the categories of مخمس or تتبع, and I'm hoping that a deeper understanding of the mechanics and aesthetics of the جواب will help me understand نوائی's place within  late-Classical Persian poetry and how it seeped into his Turkic work.

This in turn is part of my broader mission to investigate نوائی as a literary and intellectual phenomenon. Among North American and European historians of the Timurid period, the study of نوائی has tended largely to focus on his activities as a politician and patron of the arts, and his literary importance has become axiomatic, without actually being the subject of wide-ranging and deep scholarly investigation. It is, of course, a different story in Central Asia, where - because of his prominence as a culture hero - literary critics have long engaged with his works (though there too there are interpretive issues, largely deriving from the still strong influence of Marxist ideology, coupled with post-independence nationalist ideologies).

'Let go of the madrasa and the khaneqah'

One of the highlights of the annual conference of the Association of Central Eurasian Students (ACES) at Indiana University, which was held at the beginning of this month, is the booksale. Consisting mainly of donations from publishers and cast-offs from faculty-members' personal libraries, it can be a hit or miss affair. However, this year (as with last), it was beefed-up by the remnants of the personal library of the late, great Denis Sinor, who died at the beginning of last year. In his will, he left most of his books (15,000+ volumes, I believe) to two institutions in his native Hungary. What was left was first picked over by us at the Sinor Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, and then put out at the booksale.

Consequently, I was able to pick up a few interesting items. Of most immediate interest is a Soviet-era study on medieval Central Asian Turkic poetry (Э. Р. Рустамов, Узбекская поезия в первой половиние XV veka. Taшкент: 1963). Anachronistic usages of 'Uzbek' aside, it's a hugely useful survey of the Turkic poets of Central Asia who effectively constitute 'Alī Shīr Navā'ī's immediate predecessors, one of whom - اتایی - is the subject of a paper I'm writing this semester on the Yasavī sufi presence in Khurasan.

Only one copy of his divan is known to exist, and is held at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg. A descendant of one of the successors of احمد یسوی, his poetry reflects some sufi themes and ideas (although I want avoid as far as possible simply labelling him as a 'sufi' poet). One couplet quoted by Рустамов caught my eye:

قویغیل اتایی مدرسه و خانقاه
معنیدا قولی صادق و صوفیدا حال یوق

As usual, I'm struggling with a translation that is both literal and lyrical. This is my best attempt to date:

Ata'i: let go of the madrasa and the khaneqah;
Spirituality is an expression of devotion and a Sufi has no means.

The first line is fairly self-explanatory; it's trying to clarify how اتایی elaborates upon that statement in the second line that causes me to stumble. My best guest is that formal study in the مدرسه is not necessary because an 'expression of devotion' (I'm guessing that for metrical purposes قولی صادق is an inversion of the Possessive construction in Turkic) is all that is required to achieve spirituality, and that because a 'Sufi has no means' i.e. has foresworn worldly goods, then a خانقاه is also not necessary.

Regarding this last part, if that is indeed what اتایی is saying, then this would strike one as peculiar because if there is one thing we associate with sufis in this period, it is affiliation with the institution of the خانقاه. It may be an elaboration of a 'rejectionist' stance (similar to the one described by Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God's Unruly Friends: Dervish groups in the Islamic later middle period, 1200-1550. Сalt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994.), and thus we may consider the poetic voice in this case representative not of sufis, but of dervishes. Just a thought.

Diversions (3)

The New York Times Sunday Book review recently elicited responses from six writer/critics to the question, 'Why criticism matters.' One of the writers canvassed was Elif Batuman, an American writer from a Turkish family, whose wonderful book on the the study of Russian literature and the ups and downs of graduate student life, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2010), was one of the best books I read last year ... ::rewind:: one of the best books I read last year not written by 'Ali Shir Nawa'i.

As her response unfolds, you realise she is championing not the positive review, but the negative review. She writes:

Negative criticism is particularly exciting, not only because of schadenfreude, but because once limitations are identified, we glimpse how to transcend them. Learning the shortcomings of today’s neuronovel, we catch sight of the psychological novel of the future: a novel expressive of the problems we have now, including the encroachment of cognitive science into the concept of the self. When this novel appears, it will be because some people wrote neuronovels and books like “Proust Was a Neuroscientist” and others identified the ways in which these works captivated us but failed to describe human existence.

Such an interpretation can be applied not just to literary criticism, but to any form of criticism where the aim is to help an author revise and improve their writing. Unfortunately, the truly negative book-review is rarely seen in the scholarly journals: in the last couple of years I've seen one particularly dreadful book-length survey of central Eurasian history receive some unfeasibly (and unwarranted) polite reviews.