Littera Turca Journal of Turkish Language and Literature

Abstract

Classical Turkish literature is rich in works that contain the life information of poets and writers. However, some of the poets of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled a wide geography, could not find a place in the source works due to reasons such as being far from the center of the state, not having a divan, not being able to enter the reach of biographers, and having limited poetic talent. The poems of such poets have survived to the present day with the help of majmuas and conks. As a result of the researches on majmuas and conks recently, many poets whose names are not mentioned in the sources have been brought to our literature. Kefevîzâde Mehmed Âdil, who recorded his poems in a majmua containing various selected prose texts and poems, is one of them. According to the narratives in his poems and the records in the manuscripts he copied, Mehmed Âdil lived during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid I. He served as a judge in places such as Ermenek, Baalbek, Şorba, Payas and Şile between 1187/1773-74 - 1222/1807-8. He wrote poems under the pen name Adil. He presented odes to important statesmen of his time. In Mehmed Âdil's journal, 16 poems are recorded, five of which are müfred, one masnavi, three ghazals, three kıt'a and four eulogies. Two of the poems were written in Persian. In the poems, different themes such as praise for the statesmen, love of the prophet, the desire for a lover, the transience of the world, the importance of speaking are handled. While a plain and unadorned language and expression is displayed in some poems, a heavy and grandiose style is preferred in eulogies. Mehmed Âdil's poems are in accordance with the established rules of classical Turkish literature. However, some of his couplets are far from the subtlety and poetic depth of the metaphors and mazmuns of classical Turkish poetry. In this article, the journal belonging to Kefevîzâde Mehmed Âdil is introduced; life information obtained from copy records, poems and seals are presented; the translated text of his poems, which can be identified for now, has been shared with the scientific community.