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The Turkish Spy University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 5-8-2019 The urT kish Spy: a Peripatetic Novel Alain M. Antoine University of New Mexico Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/fll_etds Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Other French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Antoine, Alain M.. "The urkT ish Spy: a Peripatetic Novel." (2019). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/fll_etds/134 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Alain Antoine Candidate French Studies Department Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Pamela Cheek , Chairperson Marina Peters-Newell Stephen Bishop Carmen Nocentelli i The Turkish Spy: A Peripatetic Novel by ALAIN ANTOINE Master of Arts in Liberal Arts, 2003 Masters of Arts in Eastern Classics, 2010 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy French Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May 2019 ii Acknowledgments I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my dissertation committee, in particular Steve Bishop whose careful reading and attention to detail helped me gain more precision in my writing; I also want to acknowledge Carmen Nocentelli whose knowledge of the Turkish Spy is unparalleled and who patiently showed me how to develop an argument; I want to thank my chair, Pamela Cheek, who knew how to encourage me with positive reinforcements and also prod me to seek a higher level of excellence. It is very clear to me that I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without their dedication to see me through the entire process. Lastly, I want to thank my wife, Patricia Greer, for her unfailing support and her faith in my capacity to complete this work. iii The Turkish Spy: A Peripatetic Novel By Alain Antoine Master of Arts in Liberal Arts, 2003 Masters of Arts in Eastern Classics, 2010 Ph. D. in French Studies, 2019 Abstract Beginning its published life in a short Italian version featuring 30 letters in 1684, Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy grew into 102 letters in a French version published in 1686, and between 1687 and 1694 turned into a monumental eight volumes English Edition featuring 632 letters. The hero of the novel, a Muslim Arab spying on Louis XIV’s France for the Ottoman sultan undergoes a transformation by his contact with the Christian world, and his reflections on man, society and God seized the imagination of the public. The novel’s popularity helped its rapid spread over European nations in the first half of the 18th century but it fell into oblivion by the time some of the ideas it had helped spread were reprised by the consequential writers of the Enlightenment. This study sets out to trace the evolution of the Turkish spy’s ideas, from the character’s arrival in Paris in 1637 as a naïve young man at the service of the “Grand Signor” to the cosmopolitan evangelist of Deism and proponent of the Republic of Letters he becomes over the 45 years of his stay in the French capital. This thesis argues that the Turkish Spy presented to its readers a model of internationalist and post-religious or supra-religious attitude long before such ideas became a generally acceptable mode of discourse and a plausible way to look at the world. iv Table of Contents Introduction: New LiGhts for Old …………………………………………………….... 1 Chapter I: The Invention of the Turkish Spy ……………………………….…… 17 Chapter II: The Prefaces ……………………………………………….……………….. 47 Chapter III: The Voyage of Discovery as the Great Metaphor for ProGress ……...…... 86 Chapter IV: From Spy to Historian to Critic of Religion …………………... 112 Chapter V: Building an Argument for a New Kind of Religion …........… 146 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………..…… 184 v List of Figures Figure 1: Frontispiece to the 1691 London Edition of the Turkish Spy …………..... 68 Figure 2: Frontispiece to the 1741 London Edition …………………………………...…… 69 Figure 3: Frontispiece to the 1801 London Edition ……………………………………..…. 69 Figure 4: Drawing of a Janissary by Nicolas de Nicolay (1546) ………………….….. 116 Figure 5: Drawing of a Turkish Woman with two Children by N. de N ……..……. 116 Figure 6: DrawinG of a Calender (Religious Ascetic) by N. de N …………………….. 117 Figure 7: Drawing of three Drunkards by N. de N …………………………………..…….. 117 vi The Turkish Spy: A Peripatetic Novel Introduction: New Lights for Old Volume I of the epistolary novel L’espion du Grand Seigneur appeared at Paris in 1684, first in Italian and about a month later in French. It comprised 30 letters, purportedly written by an Ottoman spy living incognito in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV. Some of the letters are reports to the spy’s masters in Istanbul; others, addressed to a variety of correspondents including members of his family, present his reflections on a wide spectrum of topics. The publication marked a first in many respects: it was the first epistolary novel with multiple letter recipients, the first spy novel, and the first work of fiction to adopt the trope of the naïve foreigner commenting on European politics. The titular character—an ethnic Arab named Mahmut—is presented as an exceptionally learned man, as well-versed in theology as in Greek and Roman literature. Mahmut’s nom de guerre in France, for instance, is Titus—a name inspired by his reverence for the Roman historian Titus Livius. Mahmut also acknowledges his ambition to be a new Plutarch, whose admirable work, interrupted for sixteen hundred years since his death, he wishes to continue. In addition to being steeped in the classics, Mahmut is quite conversant with the philosophical and scientific theories that animated salon and coffee house conversations in the seventeenth century. For example, he addresses the 1 questions that the apparition of the great comets of 1664 and 1680 raised in a public still uncertain as to what they were. “Tell me,” he writes the astrologer to the sultan, Whether [these comets] be only exhalations drawn up in the Higher Region of the Air, by the Force of the Sun; Or, whether they be more solid and durable Substances? Whether they be of a Posthumous Origin like the Clouds, Hail, Rain, Snow, and other Meteors, the daily product of Nature, the Upstart Offspring of the Elements? Or, whether they are in the Rank of those Beings, whose Antiquity is untraceable, which are as Old as the World; such as the Sun, Moon, Stars, and this Earth whereon we tread? (T. S. Vol. VI, 239) He wonders whether the moon or the planets could be habitable (T. S. Vol. II, 92). He praises the great Astronomer Descartes, saying: “I have been often conversant with him, and took unspeakable delight in his refined Notions of the World” (T. S. Vol. II, 111). He often corresponds with Abdel Melec Muli Omar, President of the College of Sciences at Fez, and in one letter that refers to Muli Omar’s new “System of the Heavens” he both banters lightly about and displays his knowledge of astronomy: Were Ptolemy alive, thy System of the Heavens would put him to the blush. And Tycho Brahe would sneak out of his Planetary Frame, by some wild and more than Eccentric Motion, ashamed that he had been such a Botcher in Astronomy. Copernicus himself would sink under the Burden of the Moon . (T. S. Vol. VII, 92) 2 All the current questions of French society interest him, be they of scientific, religious, philosophical or societal nature. He comments on the growing phenomenon of educated women: There is a new Star risen in the French Horizon, whose Influence excites the Nobler Females to this pursuit of Humane Science. It is the Renowned Monsieur Des Cartes, whose Lustre far outshines the Aged, winking Tapers of Peripatetic Philosophy, and has eclipsed the Stagyrite1, with all the Ancient Lights of Greece and Rome. ‘Tis this matchless soul, has drawn so many of the Fairer Sex to the Schools. And, they are more proud of the title [Cartesian,] and of the Capacity to defend his Principles, than of their Noble Birth and Blood. I know our grave and Politick Mussulmen, will censure the Indulgence of the French to their Women, and accuse them of Weakness, in giving such Advantages to that Witty Sex. But, notwithstanding this Severity of the Eastern Parts, I cannot altogether disapprove of the Western Gallantry. If Women are to be esteemed our Enemies, methinks it is an ignoble Cowardice thus to disarm them, and not allow them the same Weapons we use ourselves; But, if they deserve the Title of our Friends, ‘tis an Inhumane Tyranny to debar them the Privilege of Ingenuous Education; which would also render their Friendship so much more delightful both to themselves and to us. [ . .] I see no Reason, therefore, why we should make such Bug-Bears of Women, as not trust them with as Liberal Education as ourselves. (T. S. Vol. II, 36-37) 3 L’espion du Grand Seigneur was an instant best seller in France, even though the letters’ acknowledged translator and most likely author, the Genoese exile Gian Paolo Marana, failed to profit from the work’s success: he lived in obscurity and died in relative poverty, leaving little trace of himself. In 1686, volume II and III were published in Paris, adding 72 letters to the 30 contained in volume I.
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