The rhetoric of space in Ottoman lyric poetry Alena C ´ atovic ´ Published online: 8 May 2014 Ó Akade ´miai Kiado ´, Budapest, Hungary 2014 Abstract This paper proposes an analytical assessment of the rhetoric of space in both the Ottoman gazel, a short lyric poem in couplets, and the nasib, a lyric intro- duction to qasida. The point of focus: that the distance between the beloved and the lover in Ottoman lyric poetry is, in some notable sense, analogous to the distance between the monarch and his slave. In this analogy poetic images of the City of Istanbul, the residence of the beloved/monarch and the capital of the Empire, stand as an extended metaphor for yearning and desire. On the other side of the analogy is modest provincial space of a lover. The paper explains this relation using the examples from the works of Ottoman poets from the fifteenth until the late nineteenth century. Keywords Ottoman lyric poetry Á Gazel Á Space Á Istanbul Á Distance Á Province The Ottoman lyric poetry that developed in the period from the fifteenth until the late nineteenth century was characterized by the aesthetic of resemblance, 1 just as the Ottoman literary tradition was as a whole. In other words, the poets were influenced by the belief that the poetic perfection had already been attained and that it could only have been reproduced, not reinvented. That is why different poems by different authors of that time had numerous common characteristics to the point where it is safe to claim that the Ottoman lyric poetry could be analyzed using a holistic approach. In light of the aforementioned, the focus here is upon the representation of space in Ottoman lyric poetry and, to that end, conclusions are A. C ´ atovic ´(&) Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina e-mail: alenacatovic@yahoo.com 1 This term was introduced by Esad Durakovic ´ in his book Orientology: the universe of the sacred text (2010), The Foundation of Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtin. 123 Neohelicon (2014) 41:87–94 DOI 10.1007/s11059-013-0222-9