(INTRODUCTION)
Turkish literature, as pointed out in our general introduction, is of
a less advanced character than that of most of the Semitic literatures
from which it is sprung. An epigrammatic summary of the Turkish
character has said that every fourth word of Turkish is Arabic, every
third idea Persian, and every second impulse Mohammedan. This, while
not seeming to leave much of the original Turk, is perhaps not an
unfair estimate of the extent of the Turks' indebtedness to the earlier
races and religion upon which their civilization is built.
The Ottoman Turks, that is, the Turks who founded the present Turkish
Empire, were a Tartar or Turanian tribe from Central Asia who adopted
the Mohammedan faith and began their conquest of the Mohammedan world
about the year 1300. They then possessed legends or childish tales of
their own which still survive; and these are still told among the mass
of the people with simple faith. One or two of these are given here, to
show the natural human character of the race.
The Turks next turned, in literature, to poetry. Persian Mohammedan
poetry was then at its best; and the Turks imitated, but scarcely
improved upon, its forms. So great, indeed, became the Turkish
admiration for poetry that almost every Turkish Sultan, from the year
fourteen hundred down to the present, has written poetry. Our book
gives a series, by themselves, of the best of these royal poems.
Turkish poetry has chiefly followed the Arabic fashion of expending
itself upon language rather than upon thought. We are told that when
the first Turkish epic poet Ahmedi presented to Sultan Bajazet's son
his long epic history of Alexander the Great, the prince rebuked the
poet's years of labor, saying that one tiny, perfectly polished poem
would have been worth more than all the epic. Hence it is chiefly to
the polishing of tiny poems that the poetic genius of the Turks has
been applied. They have a favorite form called the "gazel," which might
be likened to our English sonnet, except that the gazel is by far more
intricate. It is, in fact, compared by the Turks to a flower with its
petals constantly overlapping, forming a circle, and ending at the
point where they began. In rhyme, for instance, the gazel opens with
a rhyming couplet, and then through the whole poem the second line of
each couplet repeats this opening rhyme.
We have tried to give the chief Turkish poets in somewhat chronological
order, beginning with their first poet Ashiq, who died in 1332 and
whose very name is forgotten, since _ashiq_ means merely "the lover."
In other words, Turkish poetry begins with the passion of an unknown
lover, not apparently for woman, but for life and God. The collected
poems of Ashiq are called a _divan_, the usual Persian and Turkish
word for such collections; but very little of the _divan_ of Ashiq has
survived.
Among Turkish epic poets, the earliest is Ahmedi (died 1412), who wrote
the Book of Alexander the Great. The first romantic song is that of
Sheykhi (1426) on the loves of the maiden Shirin. The first religious
epic is that of Yaziji-Oglu (1449), called the "Book of Mohammed."
These, then, were the early singers. Of poets accounted of the highest
rank, the earliest was Nejati (1508). Lamii was the scholar poet, a
dervish or monk who delved into the older Persian literature and drew
his themes perhaps from ancient Zoroastrian tales. He is usually named
as the second greatest of Turkish poets. Gazali, Fuzuli, and Nabi were
also noted singers of the sixteenth century, which was the great age of
the Turkish Empire, both in literature and in military glory.
Of the two poetesses on our list, Mihri has been called the Turkish
Sappho. Yet as the life of a Turkish woman of rank is carefully
secluded, no scandal ever attached to her personal life. Her poems are
mere dreams of fancy. Zeyneb was equally honored, a lady of high rank
and a student of the Persian and Arabic poets.
All other singers, however, are accounted by the Turks inferior to the
great lyric poet Baqi (1526-1600). Baqi was at first a saddler, but
he studied law and rose to the highest legal position of the empire.
Poetry was the avocation of the great lawyer's leisure, and it won him
the admiring friendship of the four successive Sultans who reigned
during his life. The very name Baqi means "that which lasts," or "the
enduring," so it has been frequently punned upon. The poet himself used
a seal with a Persian couplet,
"Fleeting is the world, and without faith
God alone endures (or, Baqi alone is god); all else is fleeting"