Edebî Hafızanın Kıyısında: Osmanlı Yazma Kültüründe Hafıza, Dışlanma ve Dolaşım
On The Margins of Literary Memory: Remembrance, Exclusion, And Circulation In Ottoman Manuscript Culture

Summary/Abstract: This study examines how the remembrance of a poet and their work in Ottoman literary culture depended not selely on aesthetic merit, but also on the processes of transcription, reproduction, and circulation within literary circles. While analyzing how biographical anthologies (tezkires) shaped literary memory, the article also focuses on the relationship between poets and the production and dissemination of manuscript texts. Taking into account the technical and social dynamics of manuscript culture, it discusses how poems were reproduced, by whom they were copied, the contexts in which they circulated, and how these processes were reflected in the tezkires. The article argues that, in selecting poets, tezkire authors considered not only artistic value but also a poet’s connections to circles of legitimacy, the diffusion of their works, and their capacity for reproduction within manuscript networks. Drawing on examples from Ottoman tezkires, and other biographical texts, the study demonstrates that entry into literary memory was linked to manuscript culture. It further examines, the reproduction of manuscripts in multiple copies, the preference for particular poems in specific gatherings, and the marginalization of texts remained confined to authorial copies and were not deemed worthy of reproduction. These processes are evaluated within the broader economy of textual production and circulation in the Ottoman period.

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