A transcription and examination of the Millet Manuscript Library’s Mecmu’a-ı Eş’ar ve Gazeliyyat number Aemnz587

Abstract

There are some works in Ottoman poetry those have only very little information about themselves (such as the compositor, the year of composition, copy-record) but when we examine them, the works themselves still provide considerable information about their era. Poetry compilation books are usually called mecmu’a-i eş’ar, mecmu’atü’l-eş’ar (a compilation of poems) and totally reflect their compositors’ taste in poems. These works include the popular poets of their era as well as the forgotten ones of today. Furthermore, the compilations of poems are important not only because they reflect the taste in poems of their compositors, but also the taste of the poems of their era. From this perspective, I firmly believe that examining the compilation of poems that recorded in the Millet Manuscript Library numbered Aemnz587 is a milestone in comprehending the taste of poems of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.