Research Information System
JOURNAL OF TURKISH STUDIES, vol.44, no.Çekirge Budu: Festschrift in Honor of Robert Dankoff, pp.391-418, 2015 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
In this paper, I will examine two particular descriptions in Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatname (Book of Travels) of people with physical abnormalities: a man with what may be scaphocephaly in Wallachia, and a boy with hydrocephalus in Şebinkarahisar. I will begin by using the artistic and literary theory of the grotesque to explore descriptive aspects of how Evliya, as a narrator, records the characteristics of such people. Subsequently, I will examine the method through which Evliya locates and thus structures these descriptions within a particular framework; namely, that of the 'aja'ib wa ghara'ib (wonders and marvels) mode common to medieval and early modern Islamicate travel writing. Finally, I will show how Evliya's use of such descriptions within this modal framework can be seen to complicate this mode.