0002823

ABSTRACT
THE GENERIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE TIFLÎ STORIES
The Tıflî stories are a group of works consisting of prose stories mostly printed in
nineteenth-century Istanbul. The main contention of this study, entitled “The Generic
Development of the Tıflî Stories”, is that the Tıflî stories, examined in light of the
historical process of their origin, development, and decline, present a full-fledged
literary genre. The Tıflî stories, whose known corpus consists of the works “Bursalı’nın
Kahvehanesi” (The Coffee Shop of the One from Bursa), Hançerli Hikâye-i Garîbesi
(The Strange Story of the One with the Dagger), Hikâye-i Cevrî Çelebi (The Story of
Cevrî Çelebi), Hikâye-i Tayyârzâde (The Story of Tayyârzâde), “Hikâyet” (“Story”, also
known as Sansar Mustafa hikâyesi, “the story of Mustafa, the Weasel”), İki Birâderler
Hikâyesi (The Story of the Two Brothers), Letâ’ifnâme (Collection of Amusing Stories),
Meşhûr Tıflî Efendi ile Kanlı Bektâş’ın Hikâyesi (The Famous Story of Tıflî Efendi and
Bloody Bektâş), and “Tıflî Efendi Hikâyesi” (The Story of Tıflî Efendi), as well as
various versions of these works, have undergone numerous changes in the course of
time. These changes are examined here under various headings, using a comparative
approach also drawing on various outside sources on Ottoman history and literary
theory. First, the study focuses on the works’ external and linguistic properties. Under
the heading of external properties, variables such as print technology, page length and
page dimensions are examined, while under the heading of linguistic properties, the
ways in which these relate to social strata and the development from an oral to a written
language are examined. After this, the study turns to various dimensions of the
worldview presented by the stories. Here, issues such as social stata, forms of
entertainment, gender relations, and concepts of virtue are dealt with. Lastly, the study
examines the stories according to criteria of literary, or formal, realism, correspondence
to historical reality, and social relevance. The developments that the Tıflî stories exhibit
in all the examined areas enable us to divide them up into three main stages of
development. In the conclusion of this study, these stages are related to the theory of
literary genres and contextualized as representing the main stages in a process of generic
development. The study concludes that the Tıflî stories, while influenced by various
literary traditions, constitute a separate literary genre of their own.
keywords: realism, Ottoman literature, novel, genre
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