An Ottoman miscellany compiled in the eighteenth century (Textual analysis, transcription and comparative text)

Abstract

The Ottoman miscellany examined in this thesis was borrowed from Prof. Ismail Erunsal’s personal collection. The first goal of this study was to make the Miscellany accessible to researchers by transcribing the text after comparing it with the former (un)published texts pertaining to classical Turkish literature. An additional goal was to determine why these texts were compiled in this Miscellany. I reached the conclusion that it was compiled by different compilers in a long process, updating current suggestions about reasons for producing miscellanies and about ways of consumption. It has also shown that the miscellanies can be regarded and analyzed as collective works. Accordingly, the texts in verse in the Miscellany were studied in terms of the literary styles adopted by the poets in the Miscellany. The fact that the poems belonging to the philosophical style in classical Turkish literature were relatively more numerous than the others, along with the fact that the texts in prose had short notes by the compilers, demonstrates that the compilers of the Miscellany were followers of the philosophical style. The texts written in prose have been separately studied and analyzed in terms of the reasons for the miscellanies’ production reasons and their ways of consumption. This thesis is important in that it shows why a variety of texts were collected in a manuscript, going beyond the transcription of miscellanies, which is the general tendency of researchers in similar subjects.