The challenges of writing Kurdish literary history: Representation, classification, periodisation

Astengên li ber nivîsîna tarîxa edebiyata kurdî: Pêşkeşkirin, tesnîfkirin, û qonaxbendî

Farangis Ghaderi ()
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Farangis Ghaderi: University of Exeter, UK and Soran University, Kurdistan, Iraq.

Kurdish Studies, 2015, vol. 3, issue 1, 3-25

Abstract: Writing Kurdish literary history, that is a historical account of the development of Kurdish literature, is a fairly new project. Literary critics have strived to construct a comprehensive narrative of the evolution of poetry and prose and to classify individual works into certain schools and movements. Doing so, however, has proved to be a challenging task for Kurdish literature predominantly due to the lack of adequate knowledge of classical, and even contemporary, literature as a consequence of sizeable unpublished or lost manuscripts. In fact, the scarcity of knowledge on classical literature has left critics with a fragmented and episodic picture of Kurdish literary history. In this article I evaluate Kurdish literary historiography in the light of the scarcity of information and examine its ideological foundation and methodological problems. I discuss the significance of collecting, editing and publishing documents and manuscripts as a crucial step in rewriting Kurdish literary history and the way this might change our understanding of Kurdish literature.

Keywords: Kurdish literature; literary history; literary canon; manuscript; classification; periodisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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