One of the critical periods of modern Islamic history was the effort at reform known as the Tanzimat, an attempt to introduce European institutions into the far-flung Ottoman Empire, while at the same time preserve traditional 1·1uslim values. Amongst the various ways this was to affect society, not the least prominent was the introduction of new conceptions of the scope and purpose of literature, which was in turn to involve a departure from the age-long system of rhetoric, as expounded in the schools. The present thesis examines, in particular, works of the two most important authors whose efforts were directed to the achievement of a form of literary Turkish which they held to fill the needs of a modern society. Cevdet Pa~a and Ekrem Bey, although in many respects diametrically opposed to one another, was each, in his own way, to re-examine the subject of rhetoric in an Ottoman context, initiating thereby "the currents which were ultimately to give rise to modern Turkish literature. Detailed examination is paid to the influences underlining the innovations they sought to propagate, and the controversy which this aroused is evaluated in terms of the conservative and modernist tendencies within the changing society.