XVI. YÜZYILDA ŞİİRİ KINAMA VE SAVUNMA: KINALIZÂDE HASAN ÇELEBİ’NİN İTÂB-GÛNE TEZKİRESİ ÜZERİNE

Writing poetry has been an issue of debate throughout history. Moreover, writing poetry was also opposed from time to time. This situation also preserved its validity at the time of the Ottoman State. Together with the acceptance of Islam, the polytheistic Arab poets targeted the Prophet Muhammad in their poems, and it was the cause of cross-examining the writing of poetry. Under the influence of this cross-examination, the poets and authors in the Ottoman field shared their views about poets and poetry in the forewords of tezkires (biographical memoirs), in the prefaces of divans (collected poems), in the pretext compilations of mesnevis (poems made up of rhymed couplets, each couplet being of a different rhyme), and in fahriyes (classical Ottoman poetry in which a poet praises himself) of kasides (poems of more than fifteen rhyming distiches in which a person is praised). Especially, the poets made expressions by drawing attention to the importance of writing poetry in the forewords of biographical memoirs. Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, one of the sixteenth century biographical memoir authors, tried to defend poetry with verses from the Holy Koran and hadiths, both in the prefaces of the biographical memoirs of poets and in the treatise titled İtâb-gûne Tezkiresi (Reprimanding Biographical Memoir), which will be treated in this article. In the direction of the explanations made above, it will be attempted in this study to examine in detail the poetry surrounding Hasan Çelebi’s treatise and his defense of poets and the viewpoints on poetry of the biographical memoir authors of the sixteenth century Divan poets. The first section of the article mentioned the general information related to poetry and later place was given to the thoughts about poetry and poets by the Divan poets. Subsequently, it dwelled upon the sources of why the reactions developed against poetry. In the continuation of the study, the thoughts about poetry by the sixteenth century biographical memoir authors were provided. Whereas, in the conclusion it was attempted to explain the reasons for the reactions against poetry because of the defense with similar expressions by the poets and Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi’s poetry. The translation text of the treatise titled the “İtâb-gûne Tezkiresi” that defended the rumors that developed around the verses of the Holy Koran, hadiths, and the Prophet Muhammad by Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi’s poetry was added at the end of the article.