17 Facts About Turkish literature

The golden age of Ottoman Turkish literature lasted from the 15th century until the 18th century and included mostly divan poetry but some prose works, most notably the 10-volume Seyahatname written by Evliya Celebi.

Periodization of Turkish literature is debated and scholars have floated different proposals to classify the stages of Turkic literary development.

Out of this confluence of choices, the Ottoman Turkish literature language—which was always highly distinct from standard Turkish literature—was effectively born.

Turkish folk literature is an oral tradition deeply rooted, in its form, in Central Asian nomadic traditions.

Nasreddin reflects another significant change that had occurred between the days when the Turkish literature people were nomadic and the days when they had largely become settled in Anatolia; namely, Nasreddin is a Muslim Imam.

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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.

Turkish literature 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 literature – the form developed from the oral traditions of the Oghuz Turks .

Epic tradition in modern Turkish literature may be seen in the Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin, published in 1936 by the poet Nazim Hikmet Ran .

Folk poetry tradition in Turkish literature, as indicated above, was strongly influenced by the Islamic Sufi and Shi'a traditions.

Turkish literature 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:.

Reforms to the literary language were undertaken because the Ottoman Turkish literature language was thought by the reformists to have effectively lost its way.

Accordingly, many of the reformists called for written Turkish literature to turn away from the Divan tradition and towards the folk tradition; this call for change can be seen, for example, in a famous statement by the poet and reformist Ziya Pasha :.

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.

In Genc Kalemler's first issue, an article entitled "New Language" 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 Edebiyyat-i Cedide and Fecr-i Ati movements, without ever turning to Turkey itself.

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.

Elif Safak has been one of the most outstanding authors of Turkish literature which has new tendencies in language and theme in 2000s.

Recent study by Can and Patton provides a quantitative analysis of twentieth century Turkish literature using forty novels of forty authors ranging from Mehmet Rauf's Eylul to Ahmet Altan's Kilic Yarasi Gibi .