In the history of the Ottoman Empire, the period between the mid sixteenth and mid seventeenth centuries has come to be known as a time of crisis and flux, marked by territorial losses, currency devaluation, religious rivalry with Safavid Iran, palace revolts, as well as rural upheavals. Yet, we still know very little about the reactions of ordinary Ottoman subjects to these tensions and conflicts. In fact, the scholarly consensus on this question so far has been that, except for political advice literature, texts which openly criticize contemporary political, economic, and social conditions are rare and sporadic. This dissertation argues that, by considering a wider range of primary sources and approaching critique as something that could be expressed through both text and action, we can arrive at a more holistic understanding of early-modern Ottoman laymen’s capacity for social critique. The first half of the thesis discusses the professional, financial, and personal concerns of the lower-ranking officialdom. My analysis in this part utilizes hitherto largely unnoticed verses penned by provincial bureaucrats, soldiers and litterateurs beyond the immediate social circles of the imperial palace. I contend that poetry was the primary tool for articulating critique not only in the highest ranks of the capital’s literate society but also among the provincial ruling elites. In the extremely competitive environment of the hierarchical scholarly career track, many learned men were frustrated with the difficulty of obtaining an appointment and often suffered from financial hardships. Considering themselves capable of handling representative politics, they penned an abundance of critical opinions. The second chapter discusses expressions of dissatisfaction among members of the military. The landed cavalrymen and frontier raider lords who had lost their military significance since the later mid fifteenth century are among the case examples that are discussed. The second half of the dissertation turns to the deviant attitudes among the largely illiterate lower strata, which revealed themselves only if they involved criminality or ostracization. My case studies concern two particularly marginalized groups: women and figures regarded by their communities as insane, mentally challenged, eccentric, or divinely deranged. The third chapter enquires into the relationship between the subversive acts of women and the environment of heightened surveillance created by their local communities and the state. As I discuss satirical verses written by elite women, poetry continues to carry the narrative thread forward. Meanwhile, the subjects of analysis in the last chapter include court dwarves, jesters, local madmen, “holy fools,” and “wise fools.” Overall, then, the dissertation focuses on non-conformity and the personal space of action in the early modern Ottoman world. Pre-modern Islamicate societies are still often described in terms of a strict communal life that allowed little space for personal initiative. Therefore, it has often been assumed that social critiques levied at the ruling classes and their policies were either sporadic or even impossible. Contrary to this assumption, the case studies presented by this dissertation reveal early modern Ottoman subjects’ previously underestimated potential for active comment on and/or defiance of the contemporary transformations in state and society.