The Sea in Comparisons and Metaphors in Ottoman Historiography in the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

W T ken Ottoman historiography is discussed, researchers mostly focus V V on topics like the contents and the historical value of their sources, on their relationship to earlier and later writings, on the lives and careers of their respective authors as well as on the historians' ideas and concepts of history and historical writing. Rarely are historians regarded as liter ary persons,1 although most editors do comment on their authors' lan guage and style.2 And indeed, scholars specialized in Ottoman literature have given far more attention to divan poetry and its rules than to prose. A first evaluation of earlier statements on prose has been attempted by Barbara Flemming.3 She has tried to show that on the one hand, follow ing Gibb,4 prose is still being regarded as completely dependent on the stylistic ideals of poetry. Alessio Bombaci, by quoting examples for rheto ric and stylistic devices from both poetry and prose, seems to imply that they both follow the same principles.5 He even goes as far as to consider Kemalpa?azade's account of the Moha9 campaign as only seemingly to be prose while in reality, for Bombaci, it is a long qasida.6 On the other hand, Flemming maintains that the general division of Ottoman prose into three different levels, sade nesir, orta nesir and suslii nesir, which is based on Fahir iz,7 is constantly being repeated. Among these three, suslii nesir is thought to be completely governed by the rules of poetry. But Flemming stresses the need for a more differentiated view, i.e. that au