Areopagus Volume XVII

Welcome one and all to the seventeeth volume of Areopagus. That train I had to catch last week was to Istanbul. I was only there for a few days, but this was my view as I wrote threads on Twitter: the majestic Blue Mosque of Sultan Ahmed.

And so I've decided to theme this week's volume of Areopagus around the city of Istanbul, which of course includes its former identities of Byzantium and Constantinople. Haydi Gidelim!

I - Classical Music

Yine Bir Gül Nihal

Dede Effendi (1778-1846)

Why this piece?

I think this is a charming piece of music. And even if you can't understand a work of Turkish you can feel that it is a love song. There's passion here, certainly, and melancholy too, but neither melodrama nor histrionics. It flows from a humble, resigned, almost comical acceptance of the inevitability of falling of love through to a quite moving lament for the pain of this experience, before falling back into its original, consoling lullaby. And the melody itself is utterly captivating. Watch out: you'll find it whirling away in your mind as you go about your day...

It is, in the end, a splendidly enjoyable piece of music. One can clearly imagine it being played in the halls of Topkapi (more on that below) as it raised a few laugh, smiles, and (surely) tears among the courtiers and officials of the palace.

What style is it?

Ottoman Music is fascinating (and quite beautiful!). It has a rich heritage, drawing on Persian and Hellenistic musical traditions, and was developed both in the palace of the Sultans - some of whom were themselves composers - and in the great Sufi lodges of the empire. Sufism is sometimes described as "Islamic Mysticism", but that doesn't quite capture the full artistic, philosophical, and theological complexity of Sufism.

The beating heart of Ottoman music is the makam. This is, in simple terms, a set of rules governing the composition and performance of a piece of music. So when a composer chooses (or, indeed, invents) a makam, this affects how the entire piece will be written; how melodies are structured and progress, how each note relates to the others, and so on. There are over six hundred of them! The result is a marvellously varied musical tradition, and one to which Ottoman musicians over the centuries could add their own makams or interpretations of older ones.

Who was Dede Effendi?

Hammamizade İsmail (1777-1846) was one of the greatest in a long line of brilliant Ottoman composers. He started studying music at the age of eight and was trained by the Mevlevi, a famous Sufi order which dates back to the 13th century. Soon enough Dede Effendi achieved both fame and success with his scrupulous adherence to the rules of classical Turkish music, not least because he was a favourite of Sultan Selim III, one of the great patrons of Ottoman art, poetry, and music. But Dede Effendi's story is not all positive. As the Westernisation of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century led his beloved traditional music to fall from favour. He died during a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1846, and is buried there.

Effendi was a title of respect in Ottoman times, given to a man of great learning or social prestige, while Dede was a socio-religious rank. Hence his rather dignified moniker Dede Effendi.

II - Historical Figure

Justinian I

A monolith of Byzantine History

Who was Justinian?

Justinian I (482-565 AD), more often known as Justinian the Great, ruled the Byzantine Empire from 527 until his death. Across nearly four decades Justinian transformed both his capital city, then Constantinople, and the wider empire. His reign was marked by an attempt to restore the might of the Roman Empire, which in the west had fallen to relentless invasion and migration. He reconquered much of the old Western Roman Empire and therefore led the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantines, to their greatest territorial extent.

Justinian's conquests brought great wealth to the city, and so this concerted military effort coincided with a flourishing of Byzantine culture.

Why is he interesting?

Few figures loom over the history of this great, thrice-named city like Justinian. His reign has left its mark both in stone and culture not only on Istanbul but on the wider world. Some of Istanbul's most famous landmarks and sites - the Hagia Sofia and Basilica Cistern - were built under Justinian's reign. And the Hagia Sofia, rightfully considered the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World, has been the template for Byzantine-style architecture ever since, not to mention an inspiration for many of the great Ottoman mosques.

Perhaps more importantly than his military or architectural legacy, however, was Justinian's profound influence on law. He compiled the Corpus Juris Civilis between 529 and 534, a vast codification of Roman law which can be considered the foundational document of Western legal theory. Indeed, the Corpus Juris Civilis is the basis for most modern civil law systems. So we can firmly say that Justinian was one of the greatest children of this great city.

III - Painting

The Tortoise Trainer

Osman Hamdi Bey (1906)

Why this painting?

This is a wonderfully tragicomic piece of art, one whose meaning depends on how much you know about it. At first The Tortoise Trainer can seem rather quaint and well-composed, if little else. We see an apparently wise old man looking rather too studiously at his tortoises, who seem more interested in the scattered cabbage leaves than anything he has to say. It may draw us to laugh or smile fondly as we pick out the details of the fading tiles, peeling plaster, and the folds of the old man's clothes, and the colours: his predominantly red outfit stands out against the darker blue hues of the wall, while the green of the tortoise shells is balanced against the green in his turban.

But, in context, our impression is altogether different. This man is dressed anachronistically; his outfit is highly traditional and he wears a turban rather than the fez, which had been introduced in the early 19th century to replace the turban. And when we understand that this was painted in the dying decades of the Ottoman Empire as it struggled to adapt to the modern world both politically and economically, we may see that The Tortoise Trainer is a deeply satirical depiction of the impotence of the Ottoman state.

This old man who cannot convince his tortoises to do anything was, perhaps, an all-too-accurate parody of the lumbering Ottoman Empire. Only two years after the exhibition of The Tortoise Trainer came the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, and just fifteen years later this ancient empire would finally fall apart.

Who was Osman Hamdi?

Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1920) was a remarkable man, one of the most important artistic and cultural figures in Turkish history. He was an administrator, a painter, a writer, an historian, an intellectual, and an archaeologist. Osman Hamdi Bey first trained as a lawyer in Paris, before following his artistic passion and studying under the great French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. In a long and astonishingly varied career he worked on the Ottoman constitution of 1876, served as mayor of Kadıköy, founded the Turkish Academy of Fine Arts (and became its director), led archaeological digs across the Ottoman empire, and then founded the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. Somehow, among all this (and much else) he also found time to paint. Quite the career.

IV - Architectural Masterpiece

Topkapi Palace

A myriad of electicism

Fact-File

Topkapi (meaning "Cannon Gate) was first built in 1459 after Sultan Mehmet II had finally conquered Constantinople and made it the capital of the ascendant Ottoman Empire. It was constructed on the First Hill of Constantinople, now known as Seraglio Point, a highly defensible and quite beautiful promontory which juts out from the bottom end of the Bosphorous into the Sea of Marmara. It had once been the site of the acropolis of Byzantium; a testament, if needed, to the architectural and cultural palimpsest that is Istanbul.

Why is it a masterpiece?

Each Sultan took it upon himself to add, remove, modify, expand, and rebuild parts of the palace. So, rather than representing a single snapshot of architectural history, it is more like a smorgasbord of styles and eras compiled over the centuries. As such, part of what makes Topkapi so special is its eclecticism. This refers to an architectural style which draws on multiple, distinct influences and mixes them together. Indeed, it is quite remarkable to see certain parts of Topkapi influenced by the Byzantine architecture of Constantinople next to the "classical" Ottoman buildings of Mimar Sinan, right alongside Persianate arches, Western European Baroque towers, Rococo detailings, traditional Turkish galleries, Dutch tiles from Delft, and so on.

No brief words can elucidate the labyrinth of chambers, hammams (baths), courtyards, corridors, kiosks, gates, mosques, gardens, walls, throne rooms, towers, and wonders that make up Topkapi. They each have their own peculiar name and history, and you can sense here that this was once the royal and administrative heart of a vast and varied empire that straddled three continents.

V - Rhetoric

Catachresis

This is one my favourite rhetorical devices because it deals with the inherent murkiness of language. A dictionary, with its clearly ordered alphabetical explanations, gives us the impression that words have equally clear and ordered meanings. They don't. Words blur into one another, both in terms of meaning and sound.

Catachresis (abusio in Latin) normally refers to a mistake, such as when a speaker intended to say one word or image but instead used another, similar-sounding or similar-meaning one. This is also called malapropism. For example:

• Mitigate ⇿ Militate
• Chronic ⇿ Severe
• Affect ⇿ Effect
• Alibi ⇿ Excuse

However, the beautiful thing about catachresis is that it can be employed intentionally. This can be for comic or satirical effect. If you were feeling rather Francophobic you might refer to Galls rather than Gauls, say. Or, as Dogberry says in Much Ado About Nothing:

Catachresis also occurs in so-called "mixed metaphors", where two separate metaphors are combined. See this example from a poem by E.E. Cummings:

It feels like the wrong words have been used here, but the poet knew what he was doing, and the overall image is rather moving. Indeed, Quintilian considered abusio to be the (potentially awkward or strained) use of a word or image where no other words exists to describe the thing referred to. We should not shy away from awkwardness. It can be rather effective. Consider these lines:

The effect is quite striking. By riffing on the shared sounds and meanings of words, and by playing with a saying or phrase ostensibly familiar to us, catachresis catches us off-guard, forces us to really think about the words in question, and leaves a strong impression.

So many metaphors are over-employed and altogether dead. Catachresis, by using words "incorrectly", can allow you to create incredibly memorable turns of phrase which have far more power than a "correct" use of language. I put quotation marks here because, as stated, words are not quite like Lego bricks. They are more like the dappled light of sun through leaves, constantly shifting and melting together or splitting apart.

Too much catachresis can be plain ridiculous. The Roman writer Longinus said as much two thousand years ago. So be cautious with it; but do not fear the murkiness of language.

VI - Writing

Reading.

One of the best ways to write better is to read better. And given how much effort some writers put into their work, it is a shame to read their words but once, and quickly at that.

So find a piece of writing you like. Keep it relatively short. Perhaps a single poem, perhaps a play, perhaps a novella. And read it again, again, again, again. Read it ten, fifteen, twenty times. Read it until you will become so close with the text that it feels like you wrote it yourself. Read until you can recite the words as though you were speaking them for the first time. Read until, somehow, it becomes a part of you.

That may sound extreme, but there is method in this madness. Think of it like a person. You can't become close friends with somebody after speaking to them but once. The same is true, perhaps, of a text. And once you have that extraordinary familiarity with a piece of writing, it will reveal itself to you in all its depth and subtlety.

This is something of which the late, great literary critic Harold Bloom was a keen advocate. He believed poetry was meant to be totally subsumed by the reader (or listener) until they were able to move beyond the words into a realm of pure meaning.

Perhaps this sounds rather silly. Perhaps. But try it. You may be surprised how far a few verses or paragraphs can take you...

VII - Recommendations

Poetry: The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy

What we sometimes forget about the Ottoman Empire was its diversity and, in parts, high cosmopolitanism. Our idea of the nation state obscures the reality that, for much of history, the world was comprised of "peoples" and "communities" much more than borders. The Sultans reigned over many of these.

Few people capture that spirit like Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), a Greek poet born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Don't expect odes to the glory of the Sultan or anything like that. Rather, I think the subtext of Cavafy's poetry is what I'm talking about here.

Prose: Under the Yoke by Ivan Vazov

For all that might be praised about the Ottoman Empire, one must - as with all history - refrain from using rose-tinted glasses. Under the Yoke, written by the great Ivan Vazov in 1888, is a relatively short but quite extraordinary novel about the failed Bulgarian uprising of April, 1876.

Vazov's sobering depiction of Ottoman rule - not just its bursts of brutality, but its suffocation of the Bulgarian people - and the bravery of the revolutionaries - tragic and inspiring in equal measure - is no less vivid than when first published. From the opening line to its last (perhaps the greatest final line I have ever read, no less) Under the Yoke is a novel of profound power. It's highly readable too, and very often a joy to read.

Non-fiction: The Histories of Polybius

Maybe I am stretching a little here, given that Polybius only briefly talks about Byzantium in his magnificent Histories. Nonetheless, his explanation of the economic and political significance of Byzantium's location on the Bosphorous, at the gates of the Black Sea, remains relevant to this day.

Polybius (200-118 B.C.) was - perhaps - the greatest ancient historian. I will write about him again. For now, however, I will only mention that his scrupulous attention to detail and deep belief in the usefulness of history mark him out as a must read for anybody interested in Antiquity.

Miscellanous: Final speech of Constantine XI

Constantine XI Palaiologos (1405-1453) was the last ruler of the Byzantine Empire, over a thousand years after its first, Constantine the Great. He died defending his city against the Ottomans during the Siege of Constantinople. His "empire" was really just the city itself - in relative ruin and sparsely populated - and the end of the Eastern Roman Empire had been inevitable for a long time.

But Constantine XI's final speech, intended to rouse his heavily outnumbered soldiers and citizens to one last, great act of courage and glory, is a monument of rhetoric. One can clearly feel the desperation and hopelessness of his situation; yet one cannot help but be moved by his majestic language.

Question of the Week

Last week's question to test your critical thinking was:

Technology - not just the internet but everything from the wheel to the printing press - has changed our lives immensely. Have humans changed too?

This one split you down the middle. There were convincing arguments for both sides. Michael F gave an excellent, scientifically-informed answer:

Ross J argued the opposite way, also from an evolutionary perspective:

And Eleanor F seemingly rebutted Ross's answer!

Susan A, however, pointed out that we still have the same needs:

Here is an excerpt from Lukas' answer, which addressed the role of tradition in linking us with our ancestors:

And, as usual, I received some rather humorous in response. As Mantha K said:

For this week's question to test your critical thinking:

By what standards should we judge our ancestors?

And that's all

To share these fragments of history and culture with you is more than merely rewarding for me; it's a great honour. And so, to those of you who have sent me messages of support and thanks, and to whom I have not managed to reply, I can only offer my equal gratitude. And to any and all readers of the Areopagus, I thank you also. This has been a remarkable journey so far, as we weave together the tapestry of culture and learn its language, one thread and word at a time.

Yours,

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