Last of an Age

<p>In <i>The Last of an Age</i>, Sooyong Kim explores the relationship between</p><p>social change and the development of an Ottoman literary canon in the</p><p>course of the sixteenth century by examining the work and reception of</p><p>a popular poet, Zati (1471–1546). Kim argues that a newly emergent</p><p>group of bureaucratic literati, through the production of authoritative biographical</p><p>dictionaries, ultimately relegated Zati to a lesser literary age,</p><p>driven by a self-fashioning that privileged broad linguistic ability, above</p><p>all else, with poetry serving as the main vehicle for demonstrating that.</p><p>This study is interdisciplinary in approach, taking insights from literary</p><p>studies, cultural history, and social theory. It adds to the scholarship</p><p>on the rise of early modern Ottoman canons in the fields of visual arts</p><p>and music and complements recent work on court patronage. Framed by</p><p>ongoing critiques of canon formation among specialists of early modern</p><p>Europe and late imperial China, the study offers a comparative perspective</p><p>on those issues.</p>