FRANSIZCA TÜRK ŞİİRİ

Abstract

It is unknown whether the Turks produced Chinese works under the influence of the Far Eastcivilization which was one of the three civilizations that contributed to the Turkish culture. Whenthe Eastern civilization was adopted, the Turkish governors and well-known poets were very keento produce Persian and Arabic divan literature. Likewise, during the early periods ofwesternization, the Turkish culture was heavily influenced by the French culture from the verybeginning of the Reformation period to the Second World War; therefore some of the Turkishnewspapers and journals written in French devoted particular pages to literature, and some Turkishpoets wrote poems in French. This study intends to focus on the French poems written by theTurkish poets. The adventure of the French poems written by the Turkish poets was inauguratedby the four lines which fiinasi included – with hesitation, though - in Terceme-i Manzume in the mid 19th century, and reached its peak in the early 1900s with Abdullah Cevdet’s five poetry booksthat led to wide-spread repercussions both within and outside of the country. The adventurecontinued with the contributions of various poets’ published and/or unpublished poems. The latestwork that has taken place in this adventure is Prof. Dr. Mehmet Bayraktar’s (Faculty of Theology,Ankara University) Du Coeur à Toi - a work which explores a particular situation rather than thecommon popular culture, and is, hence, an exceptional work in this adventure