The Voice of Poetry, The Song of Society

It is one of the established judgments of the history of literature that Divan poetry is an 'abstract' poem, disconnected from 'real' life and society, and has no connection with the time and place in which it was produced. In The Voice of Poetry, The Song of Society, Walter Andrews takes the opposite approach to this judgment while examining the Ottoman ghazal tradition. It shows that ghazals both reflect and shape Ottoman social and cultural life. He states the importance of the communitarian worldview, the influence of Sufism, the stable power structure, activities such as parliament and bezm, and the meanings of love attributed to emotions, in understanding and interpreting both the Ottoman society and the ghazals. He emphasizes that the richness of meaning in the ghazals creates the opportunity for multi-layered readings appropriate to the complexity of Ottoman society. We present the most important work done so far on Divan poetry.



Number of Pages: 245

Year of Printing: 2003


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Iletisim Publishing

Number of Pages: 245

First Printing Year: 2000

Language Turkish