My paper argues that the appropriation of Western literary forms (such as plays) by Ottoman intellectuals is not simply an "imitation" of European literatures but, rather, is a way of questioning—and even challenging—Eurocentric notions of literature. Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan (1852-1937), with his sixteen plays and essays on play writing, is the leading playwright of 19th century Ottoman Turkish literature. My paper concentrates on his two plays, Duhter-i Hindu (The Indian Girl, 1876) and Finten (1898), in order to explore the ways in which he appropriates Western drama into Turkish literature. In the epilogue to Duhter-i Hindu, Tarhan describes how he adopts the Western "play" to articulate Ottoman social and cultural identity. In this epilogue, Tarhan also gives his definition of a national Ottoman play and acknowledges that he reshapes the Western play by including lyric poems. Hamid also writes some of his plays in verse using traditional aruz rhythms. In those plays, although Hamid adopts the Western play, he does not follow its formal conventions. By re-formulating the master form, he creates a hybrid form which combines the Ottoman classical tradition with the Western play form. This hybrid genre indicates that Hamid's purpose is not simply to copy or imitate Western literary models. Instead, by intentionally misappropriating this Western form, he creates a hybrid form which challenges the authority of the Western form. The Finten as an adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous play Macbeth, reveals Tarhan's literary interactions with European literatures to a broader extent. Shakespeare is a prominent literary figure whom the British have long held up as an example of the universal superiority of British literature and culture. In terms of plot and images, Hamid creates a Turkish text parallel to Shakespeare’s play and, in doing so, challenges the assumed unique, unparalleled character of classical Western literature. Furthermore, unlike the Macbeth, The Finten is a very critical text about British imperialism, so Hamid presents his criticism for British imperialism in the most admirable form for the British. My analysis shows that Abdülhak Hamid’s encounter with Western drama is clearly not “imitation”, which suggests the inferiority and incapability of the imitator, but can be more accurately understood as appropriation and fully competent adaptation to new local purposes.