Approach & Methods

The selected corpus of manuscripts is comprised of copies of translations of Arabic and Persian works that were translated, transmitted, received, and, if necessary, retranslated into Ottoman Turkish several times within different regional and socio-cultural networks in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The respective overarching concept of genre in the works studied is not adopted without reflection but continuously reevaluated as a condition of the production and interpretation of meaning and expression of a social situation.

When analysing manuscripts, in addition to textual components such as the preface, chapter structure, epilogue or colophon, the paratextual elements contained in these are systematically evaluated using the approach of material philology to contextualise the individual copy of a respective translation philologically, historically and prosopographically. For this purpose, particularly paratextual elements such as ownership stamps and notes, endowment, reading and lending notes, and commentaries or corrections that shed light on the readership of a manuscript are all included in the analysis. The aim is to reconstruct which actors were involved in the processes of production and circulation of each work.

The comparative analysis of manuscripts will also make it possible to infer the socio-cultural status of patrons, possibly revealing literary-cultural trends (for example, regarding patronage: what content was commissioned and copied, through what processes and why?) as well as further aspects of book production and reading culture (such as references to libraries or interventions in the text by copyists and readers). Possible aids such as grammars, dictionaries, and glossaries or commentaries (sharḥ/şerḥ) on individual works, which in the case of the latter can be partly considered translations themselves, are also included, although they must be considered in relation to “actual” translations.