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A Critical-interpretive Approach to the Ottoman Turkish Ġazel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
Extract
The Islamic poetic tradition as it came to the Turks through Persian is characterized by a rather limited catalog of basic themes expressed by an equally limited number of standard tropes. The basic themes are usually quite easily recognizable (e.g. the sâkî theme, the bahâr theme, etc.), even though more than one basic theme may be included in a single poem. The standard tropes — for example, the moon for the face of the beloved, rubies for wine, drunkenness for mystical love — are also used over and over again without any serious attempt to freshen poetic expression by discarding them for new metaphores. Nevertheless, within this atmosphere of apparent similarity, contemporary critics placed high value on creativity, uniqueness, and the invention of ‘new’ fancies. Modern scholarship has, in most cases, attempted to resolve this paradox by stating that ‘creativity’ for the Ottoman poet consisted of rearranging and recombining traditional themes and tropes to create new patterns and, thereby, a subtle and precious uniqueness. Moreover, any internal cohesion or organization other than that provided by rhyme and meter is generally seen as fortuitous and unrelated to any conscious effort to present a unified poetic message. The result of this view is the rather pervasive conclusion that the Ottoman poet is no more creative than the child is ‘creative’ who operates a kaleidoscope which produces infinitely varied patterns, even though the mirrors (themes?) and colored bits of glass (tropes?) remain ever the same.
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References
page 97 note 1 E.g. Latifi, in his Tezkere-i Şu'arâ, ed. Ahmet Cevdet (Istanbul, Ikdam matbaasi, 1314 a.h.), p. 30, describes a member of the first and best group of poets as ‘That poet who is innovative and a creative versifier, who is able, by virtue of his peculiar imagination, to produce virgin thoughts and special fancies.’Google Scholar
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page 100 note 1 This poem appears in, Dvořák, R., Baki's Divan: Ghazalijjat, vol. 2 (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1911), pp. 122–4Google Scholar, and in Iz, Fahir, Eski Turk Edebiyatinda Nazim, vol. 1 (Istanbul, Kuçukaydin Matbaasi, 1966).Google ScholarThe text is reproduced as in Nazim, with the exception ofline 5 wherein the final kesb-i safâ has been replaced by husn-i edâ as given by Dvořák. It seems highly unlikely that safa would be used as the rhyme word three times, and moreover the existence of a very similar poem (Dvořâk, vol. 2, pp. 93–4) in the same rhyme and meter containing the kesb-i safâ misrâ' exactly as cited in Nazim indicates a very likely source for the variant. It is worth noting that the Ottoman poet seldom discards incomplete, unsuccessful or preliminary drafts of his poems; thus the need for a critical perspective is, or should be felt by potential editors.Google Scholar
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page 105 note 1 I.e. the root t, r, b in both the second and fourth forms means ‘to make music’ and the active participle of the fourth form is the common term for musician.
page 109 note 1 See Table 1, p. 3, for a diagram of the major factors considered in the analysis.