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A page from the Dîvân-ı Fuzûlî, the collected poems of the 16th-century Azerbaijani poet Fuzûlî.

Turkish literature (Turkish: Türk edebiyatı) comprises oral compositions and written texts in Turkic languages. The Ottoman and Azeri forms of Turkish, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, were highly influenced by Persian and Arabic literature,[1] and used the Ottoman Turkish alphabet.

The history of the broader Turkic literature spans a period of nearly 1,300 years.[2] The oldest extant records of written Turkic are the Orhon inscriptions, found in the Orhon River valley in central Mongolia and dating to the 7th century. Subsequent to this period, between the 9th and 11th centuries, there arose among the nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia a tradition of oral epics, such as the Book of Dede Korkut of the Oghuz Turks—the linguistic and cultural ancestors of the modern Turkish people—and the Manas epic of the Kyrgyz people.

Beginning with the victory of the Seljuks at the Battle of Manzikert in the late 11th century, the Oghuz Turks began to settle in Anatolia, and in addition to the earlier oral traditions there arose a written literary tradition issuing largely—in terms of themes, genres, and styles—from Arabic and Persian literature. For the next 900 years, until shortly before the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the oral and written traditions would remain largely separate from one another. With the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the two traditions came together for the first time.



The earliest known examples of Turkic poetry date to sometime in the 6th century AD and were composed in the Uyghur language. Some of the earliest verses attributed to Uyghur Turkic writers are only available in Chinese language translations. During the era of oral poetry, the earliest Turkic verses were intended as songs and their recitation a part of the community's social life and entertainment. For example, in the shamanistic and animistic culture of the pre-Islamic Turkic peoples verses of poetry were performed at religious gatherings in ceremonies before a hunt (sığır), at communal feasts following a hunt (şölen). Poetry was also sung at solemn times and elegy called sagu were recited at yuğ funerals and other commemorations of the dead.[3]

Of the long epics, only the Oğuzname has come down to us in its entirety.[4] The Book of Dede Korkut may have had its origins in the poetry of the 10th century but remained an oral tradition until the 15th century. The earlier written works Kutadgu Bilig and Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk date to the second half of the 11th century and are the earliest known examples of Turkish literature with few exceptions.[5]

One of the most important figures of early Turkish literature was the 13th century Sufi poet Yunus Emre. The golden age of Ottoman literature lasted from the 15th century until the 18th century and included mostly divan poetry but also some prose works, most notably the 10 volume Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels) written by Evliya Çelebi.[6]


The periodization of Turkish literature is debated and scholars have floated different proposals to classify the stages of Turkic literary development. One proposal divides Turkish literature into early literature (8th to 19th c.) and modern (19th to 21st c.). Other systems of classification have divided the literature into three periods either pre-Islamic/Islamic/modern or pre-Ottoman/Ottoman/modern. Yet another more complex approach suggests a 5 stage division including both pre-Islamic (until the 11th century) and pre-Ottoman Islamic (between the 11th and 13th centuries). The 5-stage approach further divides modern literature into a transitional period from the 1850s to the 1920s and finally a modern period reaching into the present day.[7]

The two traditions of Turkish literatureEdit

Throughout most of its history, Turkish literature has been rather sharply divided into two different traditions, neither of which exercised much influence upon the other until the 19th century. The first of these two traditions is Turkish folk literature, and the second is Turkish written literature.[8]

For most of the history of Turkish literature, the salient difference between the folk and the written traditions has been the variety of language employed. The folk tradition, by and large, was an oral tradition carried on by minstrels and remained free of the influence of Persian and Arabic literature, and consequently of those literatures' respective languages. In folk poetry—which is by far the tradition's dominant genre—this basic fact led to two major consequences in terms of poetic style:[9]

  • folk poetry made use of syllabic verse, as opposed to the qualitative verse employed in the written poetic tradition

Furthermore, Turkish folk poetry has always had an intimate connection with song—most of the poetry was, in fact, expressly composed so as to be sung—and so became to a great extent inseparable from the tradition of Turkish folk music.

In contrast to the tradition of Turkish folk literature, Turkish written literature—prior to the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923—tended to embrace the influence of Persian and Arabic literature. To some extent, this can be seen as far back as the Seljuk period in the late 11th to early 14th centuries, where official business was conducted in the Persian language, rather than in Turkish, and where a court poet such as Dehhanî—who served under the 13th century sultan Ala ad-Din Kay Qubadh I—wrote in a language highly inflected with Persian.

When the Ottoman Empire arose early in the 14th century, in northwestern Anatolia, it continued this tradition. The standard poetic forms—for poetry was as much the dominant genre in the written tradition as in the folk tradition—were derived either directly from the Persian literary tradition (the gazel غزل; the mesnevî مثنوی), or indirectly through Persian from the Arabic (the kasîde قصيده). However, the decision to adopt these poetic forms wholesale led to two important further consequences:[10]


Out of this confluence of choices, the Ottoman Turkish language—which was always highly distinct from standard Turkish—was effectively born. This style of writing under Persian and Arabic influence came to be known as "Divan literature" (Turkish: divan edebiyatı), dîvân (ديوان) being the Ottoman Turkish word referring to the collected works of a poet.

Just as Turkish folk poetry was intimately bound up with Turkish folk music, so did Ottoman Divan poetry develop a strong connection with Turkish classical music, with the poems of the Divan poets often being taken up to serve as song lyrics.

Folk literatureEdit



Nasreddin also reflects another significant change that had occurred between the days when the Turkish people were nomadic and the days when they had largely become settled in Anatolia; namely, Nasreddin is a Muslim imam. The Turkic peoples had first become Islamized sometime around the 9th or 10th century, as is evidenced from the clear Islamic influence on the 11th century Karakhanid work the Kutadgu Bilig ("Wisdom of Royal Glory"), written by Yusuf Has Hajib. The religion henceforth came to exercise an enormous influence on Turkish society and literature, particularly the heavily mystically oriented Sufi and Shi'a varieties of Islam. The Sufi influence, for instance, can be seen clearly not only in the tales concerning Nasreddin but also in the works of Yunus Emre, a towering figure in Turkish literature and a poet who lived at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, probably in the Karamanid state in south-central Anatolia. The Shi'a influence, on the other hand, can be seen extensively in the tradition of the aşıks, or ozans,[11] who are roughly akin to medieval European minstrels and who traditionally have had a strong connection with the Alevi faith, which can be seen as something of a homegrown Turkish variety of Shi'a Islam. It is, however, important to note that in Turkish culture, such a neat division into Sufi and Shi'a is scarcely possible: for instance, Yunus Emre is considered by some to have been an Alevi, while the entire Turkish aşık/ozan tradition is permeated with the thought of the Bektashi Sufi order, which is itself a blending of Shi'a and Sufi concepts. The word aşık (literally, "lover") is in fact the term used for first-level members of the Bektashi order.

Because the Turkish folk literature tradition extends in a more or less unbroken line from about the 10th or 11th century to today, it is perhaps best to consider the tradition from the perspective of genre. There are three basic genres in the tradition: epic; folk poetry; and folklore.

The epic traditionEdit

The Turkish epic has its roots in the Central Asian epic tradition that gave rise to the Book of Dede Korkut; written in the Azerbaijani language - and recognizably similar to modern Istanbul Turkish - the form developed from the oral traditions of the Oghuz Turks (a branch of the Turkic peoples which migrated towards western Asia and eastern Europe through Transoxiana, beginning in the 9th century). The Book of Dede Korkut endured in the oral tradition of the Oghuz Turks after settling in Anatolia.[citation needed]. Alpamysh is an earlier epic, still preserved in the literature of various Turkic peoples of Central Asia in addition to its important place in the Anatolian tradition.[12]

The Book of Dede Korkut was the primary element of the Azerbaijani–Turkish epic tradition in the Caucasus and Anatolia for several centuries[when?]. Concurrent to the Book of Dede Korkut was the so-called Epic of Köroğlu, which concerns the adventures of Rüşen Ali ("Köroğlu", or "son of the blind man") as he exacted revenge for the blinding of his father. The origins of this epic are somewhat more mysterious than those of the Book of Dede Korkut: many believe it to have arisen in Anatolia sometime between the 15th and 17th centuries; more reliable testimony,[13] though, seems to indicate that the story is nearly as old as that of the Book of Dede Korkut, dating from around the dawn of the 11th century. Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that Köroğlu is also the name of a poet of the aşık/ozan tradition.

The epic tradition in modern Turkish literature may be seen in the Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin (Şeyh Bedreddin Destanı), published in 1936 by the poet Nâzım Hikmet Ran (1901–1963). This long poem — which concerns an Anatolian shaykh's rebellion against the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed I — is a modern epic, yet draws upon the same independent-minded traditions of the Anatolian people as depicted in the Epic of Köroğlu. Many of the works of the 20th-century novelist Yaşar Kemal (1923– ), such as the 1955 novel Memed, My Hawk (İnce Memed), can be considered modern prose epics continuing this long tradition.

Folk poetryEdit


There are, broadly speaking, two traditions (or schools) of Turkish folk poetry:





The tradition of folklore—folktales, jokes, legends, and the like—in the Turkish language is very rich. Perhaps the most popular figure in the tradition is the aforementioned Nasreddin (known as Nasreddin Hoca, or "teacher Nasreddin", in Turkish), who is the central character of thousands of stories of comical quality. He generally appears as a person who, though seeming somewhat stupid to those who must deal with him, actually proves to have a special wisdom all his own:



Another popular element of Turkish folklore is the shadow theater centered around the two characters of Karagöz and Hacivat, who both represent stock characters: Karagöz—who hails from a small village—is something of a country bumpkin, while Hacivat is a more sophisticated city-dweller. Popular legend has it that the two characters are actually based on two real persons who worked either for Osman I—the founder of the Ottoman dynasty—or for his successor Orhan I, in the construction of a palace or possibly a mosque at Bursa in the early 14th century. The two workers supposedly spent much of their time entertaining the other workers, and were so funny and popular that they interfered with work on the palace, and were subsequently beheaded. Supposedly, however, their bodies then picked up their severed heads and walked away.

Ottoman literatureEdit

The two primary streams of Ottoman written literature are poetry and prose. Of the two, poetry—specifically, Divan poetry—was by far the dominant stream. Moreover, it should be noted that, until the 19th century, Ottoman prose did not contain any examples of fiction; that is, there were no counterparts to, for instance, the European romance, short story, or novel (though analogous genres did, to some extent, exist in both the Turkish folk tradition and in Divan poetry).

Divan poetryEdit

An Ottoman garden party, with poet, guest, and cup-bearer; from the 16th-century Dîvân-ı Bâkî


  • the nightingale (بلبل bülbül)—the rose (ﮔل gül)
  • the world (جهان cihan; عالم ‘âlem)—the rosegarden (ﮔﻠﺴﺘﺎن gülistan; ﮔﻠﺸﻦ gülşen)
  • the ascetic (زاهد zâhid)—the dervish (درويش derviş)





بر گل مى وار بو گلشن ﻋالمدﻪ خارسز
Bir gül mü var bu gülşen-i ‘âlemde hârsız[15]



Although Turkish poets (Ottoman and Chagatay) had been inspired and influenced by classical Persian poetry, it would be a superficial judgment to consider the former as blind imitators of the latter, as is often done. A limited vocabulary and common technique, and the same world of imagery and subject matter based mainly on Islamic sources, were shared by all poets of Islamic literature.[17]


Fuzûlî (1483?–1556), a Divan poet of Azerbaijani origin
  • Fuzûlî (1483?–1556); a unique poet who wrote with equal skill in Azerbaijani, Persian, and Arabic, and who came to be as influential in Persian as in Divan poetry
  • Hayâlî (1500?–1557); a poet that lived in the Divan tradition


Early Ottoman proseEdit

Until the 19th century, Ottoman prose never managed to develop to the extent that contemporary Divan poetry did. A large part of the reason for this was that much prose was expected to adhere to the rules of sec' (سجع, also transliterated as seci), or rhymed prose,[18] a type of writing descended from the Arabic saj' and which prescribed that between each adjective and noun in a sentence, there must be a rhyme.

Nevertheless, there was a tradition of prose in the literature of the time. This tradition was exclusively nonfictional in nature—the fiction tradition was limited to narrative poetry.[19] A number of such nonfictional prose genres developed:

  • the târih (تاريخ), or history, a tradition in which there are many notable writers, including the 15th-century historian Aşıkpaşazâde and the 17th-century historians Kâtib Çelebi and Naîmâ
  • the seyâhatnâme (سياحت نامه), or travelogue, of which the outstanding example is the 17th-century Seyahâtnâme of Evliya Çelebi
  • the sefâretnâme (سفارت نامه), a related genre specific to the journeys and experiences of an Ottoman ambassador, and which is best exemplified by the 1718–1720 Paris Sefâretnâme of Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi, ambassador to the court of Louis XV of France
  • the siyâsetnâme (سياست نامه), a kind of political treatise describing the functionings of state and offering advice for rulers, an early Seljuk example of which is the 11th-century Siyāsatnāma, written in Persian by Nizam al-Mulk, vizier to the Seljuk rulers Alp Arslan and Malik Shah I
  • the tezkîre (تذکره), a collection of short biographies of notable figures, some of the most notable of which were the 16th-century tezkiretü'ş-şuarâs (تذكرة الشعرا), or biographies of poets, by Latîfî and Aşık Çelebi

The 19th century and Western influenceEdit

Edict of Gülhane was an 1839 proclamation by Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I that launched the Tanzimât period of reforms and reorganization in the Ottoman Empire.




  • changes brought to the language of Ottoman written literature;
  • the introduction into Ottoman literature of previously unknown genres.
Muallim Naci (1850–1893)
Ziya Pasha (1829–1880), Turkish poet and reformist
Namık Kemal (on the right) (1840-1888), Turkish writer, intellectual, reformer, journalist and political activist


Our language is not Ottoman; it is Turkish. What makes up our poetic canon is not gazels and kasîdes, but rather kayabaşıs, üçlemes, and çöğürs[22], which some of our poets dislike, thinking them crude. But just let those with the ability exert the effort on this road [of change], and what powerful personalities will soon be born![23]

At the same time as this call—which reveals something of a burgeoning national consciousness—was being made, new literary genres were being introduced into Ottoman literature, primarily the novel and the short story. This trend began in 1861, with the translation into Ottoman Turkish of François Fénelon's 1699 novel Les aventures de Télémaque, by Hüseyin Avni Pasha, to Sultan Abdülaziz. What is widely recognized as the first Turkish novel, Taaşuk-u Tal'at ve Fitnat (تعشق طلعت و فطنت; "Tal'at and Fitnat In Love") by Şemsettin Sami (1850–1904), was published just ten years later, in 1872. However, there had actually been, according to Gonca Gökalp, five other earlier or contemporaneous works of fiction that were clearly distinct from earlier prose traditions in both Divan and folk literature, and that approximate novelistic form. Among these five works is the Muhayyelât of Ali Aziz Efendi, cited above. Another, 1851's Akabi Hikâyesi ("Akabi's Story"), written by the Armenian Vartan Pasha (Hovsep Vartanian) using the Armenian script and for an Armenian audience was, according to Andreas Tietze, "the first genuine modern novel written and published in Turkey". The introduction of such new genres into Turkish literature can be seen as part of a trend towards Westernization that continues to be felt in Turkey to this day.

Due to historically close ties with France—strengthened during the Crimean War of 1854–1856—it was French literature that came to constitute the major Western influence on Turkish literature throughout the latter half of the 19th century. As a result, many of the same movements prevalent in France during this period also had their equivalents in the Ottoman Empire: in the developing Ottoman prose tradition, for instance, the influence of Romanticism can be seen during the Tanzimat period, and that of the Realist and Naturalist movements in subsequent periods; in the poetic tradition, on the other hand, it was the influence of the Symbolist and Parnassian movements that became paramount.

Many of the writers in the Tanzimat period wrote in several different genres simultaneously: for instance, the poet Nâmık Kemal (1840–1888) also wrote the important 1876 novel İntibâh (انتباه; "Awakening"), while the journalist İbrahim Şinasi (1826–1871) is noted for writing, in 1860, the first modern Turkish play, the one-act comedy "Şair Evlenmesi" (شاعر اولنمسى; "The Poet's Marriage").[24] In a similar vein, the novelist Ahmed Midhat Efendi (1844–1912) wrote important novels in each of the major movements: Romanticism (حسن ملاح ياخود سر ايچيكده اسرار Hasan Mellâh yâhud Sırr İçinde Esrâr, 1873; "Hasan the Sailor, or The Mystery Within the Mystery"), Realism (هﻨﻮز اون يدى يشکده Henüz On Yedi Yaşında, 1881; "Just Seventeen Years Old"), and Naturalism (مشاهدات Müşâhedât, 1891; "Observations"). This diversity was, in part, due to the Tanzimat writers' wish to disseminate as much of the new literature as possible, in the hopes that it would contribute to a revitalization of Ottoman social structure.[25]

Early 20th-century Turkish literatureEdit

Most of the roots of modern Turkish literature were formed between the years 1896—when the first collective literary movement arose—and 1923, when the Republic of Turkey was officially founded. Broadly, there were three primary literary movements during this period:


The New Literature movementEdit

Tevfik Fikret (1867–1915), poet and editor of Servet-i Fünun
Journal of Servet-i Fünun, edition of 24 April 1908

The Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde, or "New Literature", movement began with the founding in 1891 of the magazine Servet-i Fünûn (ﺛﺮوت ﻓﻨﻮن; "Scientific Wealth"), which was largely devoted to progress—both intellectual and scientific—along the Western model. Accordingly, the magazine's literary ventures, under the direction of the poet Tevfik Fikret (1867–1915), were geared towards creating a Western-style "high art" in Turkey. The poetry of the group—of which Tevfik Fikret and Cenâb Şehâbeddîn (1870–1934) were the most influential proponents—was heavily influenced by the French Parnassian movement and the so-called "Decadent" poets. The group's prose writers, on the other hand—particularly Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil (1867–1945)—were primarily influenced by Realism, although the writer Mehmed Rauf (1875–1931) did write the first Turkish example of a psychological novel, 1901's Eylül (ايلول; "September"). The language of the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde movement remained strongly influenced by Ottoman Turkish.


The Dawn of the Future movementEdit

In the 24 February 1909 edition of the Servet-i Fünûn magazine, a gathering of young writers—soon to be known as the Fecr-i Âtî ("Dawn of the Future") group—released a manifesto in which they declared their opposition to the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde movement and their adherence to the credo, "Sanat şahsî ve muhteremdir" (صنعت شخصى و محترمدر; "Art is personal and sacred").[26] Though this credo was little more than a variation of the French writer Théophile Gautier's doctrine of "l'art pour l'art", or "art for art's sake", the group was nonetheless opposed to the blanket importation of Western forms and styles, and essentially sought to create a recognizably Turkish literature. The Fecr-i Âtî group, however, never made a clear and unequivocal declaration of its goals and principles, and so lasted only a few years before its adherents each went their own individual way. The two outstanding figures to emerge from the movement were, in poetry, Ahmed Hâşim (1884–1933), and in prose, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (1889–1974).

The National Literature movementEdit

Cover page from an issue of Genç Kalemler
Ali Canip Yöntem, Turkish nationalist writer and politician, who was one of the most prolific poets of the millî edebiyyât


At first, this movement crystallized around the magazine Genç Kalemler (کنج قلملر; "Young Pens"), which was begun in the city of Selânik in 1911 by the three writers who were most representative of the movement: Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), a sociologist and thinker; Ömer Seyfettin (1884–1920), a short-story writer; and Ali Canip Yöntem (1887–1967), a poet. In Genç Kalemler's first issue, an article entitled "New Language" (Turkish: "Yeni Lisan") pointed out that Turkish literature had previously looked for inspiration either to the East as in the Ottoman Divan tradition, or to the West as in the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde and Fecr-i Âtî movements, without ever turning to Turkey itself.[27] This latter was the National Literature movement's primary aim.

The intrinsically nationalistic character of Genç Kalemler, however, quickly took a decidedly chauvinistic turn,[28] and other writers—many of whom, like Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, had been a part of the Fecr-i Âtî movement—began to emerge from within the matrix of the National Literature movement to counter this trend. Some of the more influential writers to come out of this less far-rightist branch of the National Literature movement were the poet Mehmet Emin Yurdakul (1869–1944), the early feminist novelist Halide Edip Adıvar (1884–1964), and the short-story writer and novelist Reşat Nuri Güntekin (1889–1956).

Republican literatureEdit


The literature of the new republic emerged largely from the pre-independence National Literature movement, with its roots simultaneously in the Turkish folk tradition and in the Western notion of progress. One important change to Turkish literature was enacted in 1928, when Mustafa Kemal initiated the creation and dissemination of a modified version of the Latin alphabet to replace the Arabic-based Ottoman script. Over time, this change—together with changes in Turkey's system of education—would lead to more widespread literacy in the country.[29]



The social realist movement is perhaps best represented by the short-story writer Sait Faik Abasıyanık (1906–1954), whose work sensitively and realistically treats the lives of cosmopolitan Istanbul's lower classes and ethnic minorities, subjects which led to some criticism in the contemporary nationalistic atmosphere.[31] The tradition of the "village novel", on the other hand, arose somewhat later. As its name suggests, the "village novel" deals, in a generally realistic manner, with life in the villages and small towns of Turkey. The major writers in this tradition are Kemal Tahir (1910–1973), Orhan Kemal (1914–1970), and Yaşar Kemal (1923[?]–2015). Yaşar Kemal, in particular, has earned fame outside of Turkey not only for his novels—many of which, such as 1955's İnce Memed (Memed, My Hawk), elevate local tales to the level of epic—but also for his firmly leftist political stance. In a very different tradition, but evincing a similar strong political viewpoint, was the satirical short-story writer Aziz Nesin (1915–1995) and Rıfat Ilgaz(1911–1993).

Another novelist contemporary to, but outside of, the social realist and "village novel" traditions is Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901–1962). In addition to being an important essayist and poet, Tanpınar wrote a number of novels—such as Huzur ("A Mind at Peace", 1949) and Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü ("The Time Regulation Institute", 1961)—which dramatize the clash between East and West in modern Turkish culture and society. Similar problems are explored by the novelist and short-story writer Oğuz Atay (1934–1977). Unlike Tanpınar, however, Atay—in such works as his long novel Tutunamayanlar ("The Good for Nothing", 1971–1972) and his short story "Beyaz Mantolu Adam" ("Man in a White Coat", 1975)—wrote in a more modernist and existentialist vein. On the other hand, Onat Kutlar's İshak ("Isaac", 1959), composed of nine short stories which are written mainly from a child's point of view and are often surrealistic and mystical, represent a very early example of magic realism.

The tradition of literary modernism also informs the work of female novelist Adalet Ağaoğlu (1929– ). Her trilogy of novels collectively entitled Dar Zamanlar ("Tight Times", 1973–1987), for instance, examines the changes that occurred in Turkish society between the 1930s and the 1980s in a formally and technically innovative style. Orhan Pamuk (1952– ), winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, is another such innovative novelist, though his works—such as 1990's Beyaz Kale ("The White Castle") and Kara Kitap ("The Black Book") and 1998's Benim Adım Kırmızı ("My Name is Red")—are influenced more by postmodernism than by modernism. This is true also of Latife Tekin (1957– ), whose first novel Sevgili Arsız Ölüm ("Dear Shameless Death", 1983) shows the influence not only of postmodernism, but also of magic realism. Elif Şafak has been one of the most outstanding authors of Turkish literature which has new tendencies in language and theme in 2000s. Şafak was distinguished first by her use of extensive vocabulary and then became one of the pioneers in Turkish literature in international scope as a bilingual author who writes both in Turkish and in English.

A recent study by Can and Patton[32] provides a quantitative analysis of twentieth century Turkish literature using forty novels of forty authors ranging from Mehmet Rauf's (1875-1931) Eylül (1901) to Ahmet Altan's (1950-) Kılıç Yarası Gibi (1998). They show using statistical analysis that, as time passes, words, in terms of both tokens (in text) and types (in vocabulary), have become longer. They indicate that the increase in word lengths with time can be attributed to the government-initiated language reform of the 20th century.[33] This reform aimed at replacing foreign words used in Turkish, especially Arabic- and Persian-based words (since they were in majority when the reform was initiated in the early 1930s), with newly coined pure Turkish neologisms created by adding suffixes to Turkish word stems. Can and Patton;[32] based on their observations of the change of a specific word use (more specifically in newer works the preference of "ama" over "fakat", both borrowed from Arabic and meaning 'but', and their inverse usage correlation is statistically significant); also speculate that the word length increase can influence the common word choice preferences of authors.




Orhan Veli Kanık (1914-1950) was the founder of the Garip Movement in Turkish poetry.



Outside of the Garip and "Second New" movements also, a number of significant poets have flourished, such as Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca (1914–2008), who wrote poems dealing with fundamental concepts like life, death, God, time, and the cosmos; Behçet Necatigil (1916–1979), whose somewhat allegorical poems explore the significance of middle-class daily life; Can Yücel (1926–1999), who—in addition to his own highly colloquial and varied poetry—was also a translator into Turkish of a variety of world literature; İsmet Özel (1944– ), whose early poetry was highly leftist but whose poetry since the 1970s has shown a strong mystical and even Islamist influence; and Hasan Hüseyin Korkmazgil (1927-1984) who wrote collectivist-realist poetry.

Book TradeEdit

30,000 new titles appear yearly, often in small numbers. 9 verso 17 Euro (pro pocket book/hardcover) - at an average earning of less than 600 Euro monthly - are rather unattractive, where illegal copies at bazaars cost two thirds less. "Official Certificates" for legally published books do not solve the problem, because controlling the illegal book trade remains difficult.

5,000 of 10,000 book shops in Turkey are in Istanbul, including the bookfair and growing licence trading. Turkey was a guest of honour at the Frankfurt Bookfair in 2008.[37]

Important works of fiction: 1860–presentEdit

İbrahim Şinasi
Halide Edip Adıvar
Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil
Reşat Nuri Güntekin
Tarık Buğra
Oğuz Atay
Halikarnas Balıkçısı

See alsoEdit


  1. ^ Bertold Spuler. Persian Historiography & Geography Pustaka Nasional Pte Ltd ISBN 9971774887 p 69
  2. ^ Retrieved 2016-04-13. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ^ Halman, Talat. A Millenium of Turkish Literature. pp. 4–6.
  4. ^ Halman, Talah. A Millenium of Turkish Literature. pp. 4–5.
  5. ^ Halman, Talah. A Millenium of Turkish Literature. p. viii.
  6. ^ Halman, Talah. A Millenium of Turkish Literature. p. viii.
  7. ^ Halman, Talah. A Millenium of Turkish Literature. p. 1–2.
  8. ^ Halman, Talah. A Millenium of Turkish Literature. p. 2–3.
  10. ^ Tanpınar, 2–3
  12. ^ Alpamysh
  13. ^ Belge, 374
  14. ^ Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey's declaration is as follows: Şimden gerü dîvânda, dergâhta, bârgâhta, mecliste ve meydanda Türkçeden başka dil kullanılmayacaktır ("From this day forward, no language other than Turkish will be used in the court, in the tekke, in the palace, in the government, or in public") Selçuk Üniversitesi Uzaktan Eğitim Programı (SUZEP). As a measure of the extent of the influence against which Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey was fighting, his declaration itself contains three words of Arabic origin (دیوان dîvân or "court", مجلس meclis or "government", and ميدان meydân or "public") and two of Persian origin (درگاه dergâh or "tekke" and بارگاه bârgâh or "palace").
  15. ^ Pala, 425
  16. ^ Andrews, Ottoman Lyric Poetry: An Anthology, 22–23
  17. ^ William Charles Brice, An Historical atlas of Islam, 1981, p.324
  18. ^ Belge, 389
  20. ^ Mansel, 266
  21. ^ This view of Ottoman Turkish and its works as derivative of Arabic and, especially, Persian has begun to be challenged in recent years. In an essay on Şeyh Gâlib, for example, Victoria Holbrook states: "The slur that Ottoman poetry in general imitated the Persian ... is based on a misunderstanding of Ottoman poetical conventions and a confounding of notions of 'imitation'." (Holbrook, 442)
  23. ^ "Bizim dilimiz Osmanlıca değil, Türkçedir. Şiirimizde divanları dolduran gazelle kaside değil, bazılarının vezinsiz diye beğenmedikleri 'kayabaşı', 'üçleme' ve 'çöğür'lerdir. İstidat sahiplerimiz hele bu yola bir kere himmet etsinler, az vakitte ne kudretli şahsiyetler yetişir" (Karaalioğlu, Ziya Paşa, 39).
  24. ^ An earlier play, a farce entitled "Vakâyi`-i `Acibe ve Havâdis-i Garibe-yi Kefşger Ahmed" (وقایع عجیبه و هوادث غریبۀ کفشگر احمد; "The Strange Events and Bizarre Occurrences of the Cobbler Ahmed"), dates from the beginning of the 19th century, but there remains some doubt about its authenticity.
  25. ^ Moran, 19
  26. ^ Karaalioğlu, Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi, v.3, 216–218
  27. ^ Muhtar, et al.
  29. ^ Lester 1997; Wolf-Gazo 1996
  30. ^ Bezirci, 105–108
  31. ^ Paskin 2005
  32. ^ a b Can & Patton
  33. ^ Lewis
  35. ^ Quoted in Halman 1997.
  36. ^ The Garip movement was considered to be the "First New" (Birinci Yeni).
  37. ^ This background info is from: see Börsenblatt Spezial Buchmesse 2008, S. 14 ff.

*Alpamysh, Hasan Bülent Paksoy


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