It is often supposed that nighttime in early modern Ottoman cities was a socially dead period that came to life only with the arrival of Western forms of nocturnal conviviality. Arus Yumul, for example, argued that during the nineteenth century, the Ottoman ruling class “introduced nightlife into a society where night-time sociability was practically non-existent.” In this presentation I argue that although urban order indeed encouraged introversion during the dark hours, there were nevertheless traditions of nightlife that drew their meaning from transgressing this very order. In the first part of the presentation I outline the contours of urban daily routine. In contrast to present-day, artificially-lit societies, in the early-modern Ottoman Empire day life and night life were clearly distinguished from one another on a number of levels which seem to have reinforced each other. On all these levels sunset represented a meaningful moment; it was a time of closure. Sunset marked the termination of the daily cycle of religious worship, the end of another round of clock hours (which were commonly counted from sunset to sunset), and the conclusion of the calendar day. Moreover, darkness brought an end to the daily cycle of social life. With sunset the gates of cities, roofed bazaars, quarters, neighborhoods, and courtyards were shut and the call for the night prayer signaled the almost complete evacuation of the streets. However, at least among the elites there developed elaborate traditions of nightly conviviality, the most common being the meclis. The meclis was a semi-institutionalized gathering of close companions which was usually held overnight in private gardens or houses. Using extracts from eighteenth century gazels, I will show that for its selected participants, and within its clearly delineated spatial and temporal boundaries, the meclis allowed, indeed encouraged excessive behaviors that would be unacceptable beyond its confines. The night-gathering derived much of its meaning from the inversion of temporal routine, an inversion that was clearly the privilege of the privileged. The ability to consciously transgress the norms of the commoners served the exclusive collective identity of those engaged in these activities. On the methodological level, the presentation demonstrates how divan poetry can be used alongside more ‘traditional’ sources, to go beyond the level of observable patterns and reconstruct the world of perceptions that underlay these patterns.