A response to the demand for modern narrative:|Sergüzeşt-i Kalyopi

Abstract

T. Abdi is an important author who published four novels between 1873 and 1875 that are the date of appearing of Ottoman novels. There is no accurate information about who is T. Abdi in history of literature. There were few studies about this important author and his works. Sergüzeşt-i Kalyopi, which is best-known work of him, is an attempt to transcribe a story from oral culture. When T. Abdi wrote a traditional story, he gave the reason of the plot and created a character (even it is primitive). It is seen in his prefaces of novels, translated novels became popular and a demand occurred for modern narration. It was noticeable that T. Abdi satisfies this demand with telling a story from tradition, at the same time using modern narration. T. Abdi also has distinctive features. Unlike the other authors in his era, he used a female protagonist in his novel. Despite these interesting features, T. Abdi was not included in Turkish literary canon. The research which has been done until this time aims to determine Sergüzeşt-i Kalyopi’s role in the tradition. The primary purpose of this study is about how to Sergüzeşt-i Kalyopi transforms this tradition.