In The Last of an Age, Sooyong Kim explores the relationship between


social change and the development of an Ottoman literary canon in the


course of the sixteenth century by examining the work and reception of


a popular poet, Zati (1471–1546). Kim argues that a newly emergent


group of bureaucratic literati, through the production of authoritative biographical


dictionaries, ultimately relegated Zati to a lesser literary age,


driven by a self-fashioning that privileged broad linguistic ability, above


all else, with poetry serving as the main vehicle for demonstrating that.


This study is interdisciplinary in approach, taking insights from literary


studies, cultural history, and social theory. It adds to the scholarship


on the rise of early modern Ottoman canons in the fields of visual arts


and music and complements recent work on court patronage. Framed by


ongoing critiques of canon formation among specialists of early modern


Europe and late imperial China, the study offers a comparative perspective


on those issues.