bilig-25/ Spring 2003

PERSIAN POETRY OR POETRY IN PERSIAN?
THOUGHTS ABOUT FORMATION AND BOUNDARIES OF CLASSICAL
TURKISH POETRY CUSTOM

 
Assis. Prof. Dr. Ahmet ARI


ABSTRACT

       There are problems about the boundaries, content, definition and naming of the classical Turkish literature forming the longest time period within Turkish literature. It is known that these problems originated basically from the classification based on the literary language. In parallel with the great achievements in almost every field, a common literature was also established by the cooperation of nations residing within the Islamic circle after the advent of Islam. The language of this common literature, which had been established in the beginning of Islamic culture and civilization and which formed the origin of the classical Turkish literature, became Persian due to historical necessities. It is possible to say that the Turks, later on, continued this literature/poetry custom in Anatolia using a novel language referred as Western Turkish, and they were the only nation who carried on such poetry custom up to the 20th century. However, as a result of the classifications not dealing with the poetry custom but based solely on the language difference, past of the classical Turkish literature remained obscure and it was evaluated as an imitation literature. The adaptation of these evaluations made by the Western sources without having sufficient materials and knowledge results in a vicious circle in our literature education. Therefore, this subject needs to be taken up once more in the light of studies conducted since the middle of the 20th century.

     This paper brings up the matters of historical progress of the common Islamic literature, the role of Turks in the development of this literature and the origin of the classical Turkish literature. As a conclusion, the use of a classification method based solely on the literary language would be insufficient to classify the Turkish literature.


Key Words : 
Turkish Poetry, Early Islamic period, Common Literature, Persian Poetry, Poetry in Persian, History of Literature, National Literature.