This book offers the first-ever partial English translation and commentary of what are arguably the two most important Ottoman biographical dictionaries of poets: the tezkires of Aşık Çelebi and Latifi. While tezkires are mostly culled for their factual data, this book focuses on the non-entry materials, especially the prefaces. These offer intimate glimpses into the authors’ lives, charting their professional ambitions, frustrations and feuds, set against the backdrop of the sixteenth-century Ottoman literary world – a world in which patrimonial relations made and broke careers, poetry was appraised, attacked, monetised and stolen, and the ambitions of aspiring poets were fuelled and foiled.
The two tezkires reflect this milieu, and their authors were personally acquainted, exchanging thoughts over their work and, finally, falling out over an accusation of plagiarism. The translations are supplemented with a reflection on the nature and translatability of Ottoman high prose, a discussion of the tezkire genre and a detailed presentation of the two authors and their dictionaries. Through a novel study of these interconnected works, this book provides a panorama of Ottoman literary history, as well as insights into the authors’ personal struggles.
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