In this paper I explore the role of talent and education in fifteenth century rhetorical manuals and sixteenth century Ottoman biographical dictionaries of poets, and evaluate those with references to the art of poetic composition that appeared during the turn of century in Ottoman lyric poems. Ottoman lyric poems often contained direct references to the act of poetic composition, thus allowing the poet to boast about his inherent talent and/or his mastery and education in the arts of poetry. I aim to advance the premise that education vis-à-vis talent functioned as a central element in explaining literary merit, as much as it revealed a form of social critique. I focus on different instances of lives of renowned poets as depicted in the three major biographical dictionaries of poets, namely, those written by Sehi Beg, Latifi and Ashik Chelebi. These biographical dictionaries shared and reproduced biographical stories of Anatolian poets with a particular stress on their education and/or talent as a decisive element in defining literary excellence. Furthermore, education or talent, expressed as a characteristic of the poet’s craft, represented the necessary quality for both literary and political success. In the discussions regarding the role of talent or education in the making of a successful poet, rhetoric and literary arts took place as a part of a larger debate concerning the expected qualities of a bureaucrat or a learned man involved in court politics. Even though it has been neglected in Ottoman historiography, literary merit, attained either through talent or education, signified the power of writing in Ottoman court and represented a mark of social distinction. Discussions surrounding the most valuable forms of attaining literary merit were at the same time discussions regarding the corruption of the ruling class, for natural talent was taken as a substitute for education. While it is difficult to fully explain the role of composing poetry in Ottoman politics with our current knowledge, it was indeed crucial for the public exercise of the intellectual’s skills, as well as a it enabled a display of his political and diplomatic education. This paper investigates how discussions in rhetorical manuals regarding talent and education were first incorporated into a subgenre of lyric poetry and then formalized in biographical sketches as an integral part of nascent Ottoman politics and governance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.