REFLECTIONS OF SA‘DÎ’S GÜLISTÂN IN TURKISH LITERATURE GATHERINGS

Abstract

Gülistân, written by Sa‘dî in the name of Sa’d II, the descendant of Sultan of Salgur Ebûbekr bin Sa‘d bin Zengî, is a world famous literary work going beyond the Persian literature. Being organized in three sets as Dîbâce, 8 Bâb and Hâtime, the work comprises tales formed within the concepts of monarchy, saints, austerity, tranquility, love and youth, senescence and social decorum. As well as narration techniques such as past, folk tales, verses of Quran, hadiths, succinct expressions, proverbs and idioms, most of which are prose works studying ‘morals’, the work was also benefitted as a rhetoric and fluency book in Islamic universities being reinforced by several poem forms as couplet, verse, rubai and stanza. Being one of the foremost examples of advisory works, Gülistân has been regarded as among the main works of Turkish Literature tradition and has been translated, commented and glossaries prepared since the 14th century. In this work, reflections of Sa‘dî’s famous work Gülistân have been analyzed specific to literature gatherings, the position of the work in our literature with which peculiarities has been assigned and the outcomes of 185 literary scannings have been classified under main headlines. Divan poets, who regard Gülistân as a course book in poetry and prose writing as well as a consultant source in rhetoric and fluency, mostly resembled it to a lover regarding the word ‘gül’ in its content and ‘formal beauty and meaningfulness’ it involves. Besides, as Gülistân is a masterpiece, divan poets considered Sa‘dî as their rival or compared their works with Sa‘dî’s Gülistân while praising it or their own works Thanks to its success in language, content and art, Gülistân went beyond the borders of the Persian territory and spread to other world literature and Turkish literature, in particular. In 54 antologies out of 185 we scanned, Gülistân is mentioned, especiall in 131 of them the word 'gülistân' is used as a reference to Sad'î's Gülistân. The writes whose works include references to Gülistân are as follows: Âhî, Ahmed Bâdî, Ahmed Vesim, Ahmedî, Âsaf, Âşık Çelebi, Avnî (Fatih), Bâkî, Behiştî, Bursalı Rahmî, Cesârî, Çorlulu Zarifî, Edincikli Ravzî, Edirneli Nazmî, Emrî, Faik Mahmud, Filibeli Vecdî, Garâmî, Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali, Hâfız Ahmed Paşa, Hafîd, Hakanî Mehmed Bey, Halil Nûrî, Hanyalı Kâmî, Hanyalı Nûrî Osman, Hayâlî, Hulvî, İzzet Molla, Kabûlî İbrahim, Kânî, Kara Fazlî, Mehmed Nebil, Muvakkitzâde Pertev, Nâkâm, Nazîf, Nazîr İbrahim, Necâtî, Nisârî, Numân Mâhir, Peşteli Hisâlî, Piriştineli Nûrî, Prizrenli Şem‘î, Revânî, Sabrî Mehmed, Süheylî, Sünbül-zâde Vehbî, Şehdî, Süheylî, Şuhûdî, Üsküblü İshâk Çelebi, Vahyî, Yahyâ, Yakînî, Zihnî. Among many peculiarities of Gülistân references in the aforementiones authors' works are its bein one of Sad'î's work, being written in the name of Sa'd II, the successor of Sa'd bin Zengi, having a preamble, being formed in chapters, involving couplets, lyrics and several poetic forms, functioning as an advisory book in which he advised his own morals, having a section reserved to love, including tales and having a fluent narrative and excellent form and content. In literary works, Gülistân has always been interlinked with rhetoric, fluency and meaningfullness. It is quite clear that Gülistân serves as an introductory textbook for poesy and writing career and with reference to the use of 'School of Gülistân' and 'Gülistân Course' poets and writers were exposed Gülistân as an education process and students kept it as a masterpiece while learning Persian. In literary works and talks, Gülistân has always been mentioned with a nightingale. The nightingale is either telling about Gülistân or reading it. Most of the time, the nightingale refers to Sa'dî the poet. It is also a common description that Gülistân is read by buds. These descriptions that remind of Gülistân as a Persian teaching book can be considered as a remote reference to Gülistân dictionaries and its commentaries and translations prepared for junior readers. Besides that Gülistân is benefitted as a coursebook, there are also signs that show it was read by heart as well. In literary antologies, 'love fluency and delicateness' was referred to the beauty of the lover and the lover here is symbolized by Gülistân itseelf. Poets praised their lovers' face resembling to roses and asserted sometimes that their fac is more beautiful than Gülistân. While praising thir lovers with refereence to Gülistân, poets also rivalled with Gülistân and Sa'dî and praisd them indirectly as well, thereby meaning that the work is a true milestone and served almost as a touchstone determining the beauty of things and people. Within the tradition of Turkish Classical Literature, poets mentioned Gülistân in the works in which other masterpieces were issued. Being referenced in almost all literary works, Gülistân refers to the garden of roses. Besides there are also many works in which Gülistân was referred both to the masterpiece of Sa'dî and the actual meaning of rose garden. It is possible to see such uses in almost all of th eaforementioned works. Conclusion For almost six centuries, all across the Ottoman territory, there were always works of commentary, translation and dictionaries of Gülistân, which is one of the fundamental works of classical Turkish literature and through which almost all poets were educated. In addition to this, in their works, poets many times stated that they used Gülistân as a coursebook in their poesy education, they learned fluency, rhetoric and meaningfullness from this work, the nightingale learned love from Gülistân and thereby told many tales from Gülistan, resembled their lovers' beauty to Gülistân or their lovers were much more beautiful than Gülistân itseelf. On the other hand, whil some poets admitted that they could neever reach the excellence of Gülistân, others asserted that theirs were much better than that. All these function as proof that Gülistân, blnt with tel

Özet

Sa'dî'nin, Salgurlu Beyi Ebûbekr bin Sa'd bin Zengî'nin veliahtı II. Sa'd adına XIII. yüzyılda kaleme aldığı Gülistân, Fars edebiyatının sınırlarını aşarak dünya edebiyatına mâl olmuş bir eserdir. Dîbâce, 8 Bâb ve Hâtime olarak tertip edilen eser, "padişahlık, dervişlik, kanaat, az konuşmak, aşk ve gençlik, hastalık ve yaşlılık, terbiye, sohbet adabı" konuları etrafında şekillendirilen hikâyelerden ve hikmetli sözlerden oluşmaktadır. "Ahlak" temini işleyen, ağırlığı mensur olan eser; tarihî hikâyeler, ayetler, hadisler, vecizeler, atasözleri, deyimler gibi anlatım malzemelerinin yanında, beyit, mısra, rubai, kıta başlıklı manzumelerle güçlendirilerek bir belagat ve fesahat kitabı olarak elden ele dolaşmış, medreselerde dahi okutulmuştur. Nasihatname türünün önde gelen numunelerinden olan Gülistân, klasik Türk edebiyatı geleneğinin temel eserleri arasında yer almış; XIV. asırdan itibaren pek çok kez tercümesi ve şerhi yapılmış, sözlükleri hazırlanmıştır. Bu çalışmada; Sa'dî'nin meşhur eseri Gülistân'ın klasik Türk edebiyatındaki yansımaları "divanlar özelinde" incelenmiş, eserin şiirimizde hangi özellikleriyle yer aldığı, öne çıkarıldığı değerlendirilmiş, 185 divanın taranması sonucu ortaya çıkan hususlar ana başlıklar altında tasnif edilmiştir. Gülistân'ı, şairlik ve yazarlık eğitimi için bir hazırlık kitabı, belagat ve fesahat öğreten bir başvuru kaynağı olarak değerlendiren divan şairleri; eseri, içerdiği "gül" kelimesi ve içinde bulundurduğu "şekil ve mana güzellikleri" dolayısıyla da sık sık sevgiliye teşbih etmişlerdir. Bunun yanında Gülistân'ın bir şaheser olması hasebiyle, divan şairleri övünür veya överken; ya kendilerini Sa'dî'ye rakip görmüşler ya da kendi şiirlerindeki ifadelerin güzelliğini Gülistân ile mukayese etmişlerdir