THE INFLUENCE OF BYZANTINE LITERATURE
ON THE TURKISH LITERATURE
PRESENTATION SUBTITLES
• Byzantine Literature
• Byzantine and Ancient Greece
Literature
• A General View Of Turkish
Literature
• Western Literature Influence On
Turkish Literature (Tanzimat Era)
• The Pioneers of The Tanzimat Era
• Two Well-known Writers In Turkish
Literature
Orhan Pamuk and Mevlana
• Famous Wise Sayings by Mevlana
• A Multivision Show of Sema
BYZANTINE LITERATURE
Byzantine literature may be defined
as the Greek Literature of the
Middle Ages,whether written in the
territory of the Byzantine Empire or
outside its borders.It forms the
second period in the history of Greek
literature,though popular Byzantine
literature and early Modern Greek
Literature,which begin in the 11th
century, are indistinguishable.
An 11th century Byzantine Gospell; its
beautiful presentation perfectly illustrates
the decorative style employed by scholars
of that age.
Characteristics
Many of the classical Greek genres, such as drama and choral lyric poetry, had been obsolete by late
antiquity, and all medieval literature in the Greek language was written in an archaizing style, which imitated
the writers of ancient Greece.This practice was perpetuated by a long-established system of Greek education
where rhetoric was a leading subject.A typical product of this Byzantine education was the Greek Church
Fathers, who shared the literary values of their pagan contemporaries. Consequently the vast Christian
literature of the 3rd to 6th centuries established a synthesis of Hellenic and Christian thought. As a result,
Byzantine literature was largely written in a style of Atticistic Greek, far removed from the popular Medieval
Greek that was spoken by all classes of Byzantine society in their everyday lives. In addition, this literary
style was also removed from the Koine Greek language of the New Testamentt, reaching back to Homer and
the writers of ancient Athens.s
In this manner, the culture of the Byzantine Empire was marked for over 1000 years by a diglossy between
two different forms of the same language, which were used for different purposes. However, the relations
between the "high" and "low" forms of Greek changed over the centuries. The prestige of the Attic literature
remained undiminished until the 7th century AD, but in the following two centuries when the existence of the
Byzantine Empire was threatened, city life and education declined, and along with them the use of the
classicizing language and style. The political recovery of the 9th century instigated a literary revival, in
which a conscious attempt was made to recreate the Hellenic-Christian literary culture of late antiquity.
Simple or popular Greek was avoided in literary used and many of the early saints' lives were rewritten in an
archaizing style. By the 12th century the cultural confidence of the Byzantine Greeks lead them to develop
new literary genres, such as romantic fiction, in which adventure and love are the main elements.Satire made
occasional use of elements from spoken Greek.
The period from the Fourth Crusade to the Fall of
Constantinople saw a vigorous revival of imitative
classicizing literature, as the Greeks sought to assert
their cultural superiority over the militarily more
powerful West.At the same time there was the
beginning of a flourishing literature in an
approximation to the vernacular Modern Greek.
However the vernacular literature was limited to
poetic romances and popular devotional writing. All
serious literature continued to make use of the
archaizing language of learned Greek tradition.
Byzantine literature has two sources: Classical Greek
and Orthodox Christian tradition. Each of those
sources provided a series of models and references
for the Byzantine writer and his readers. In occasion,
both sources were referred to side by side, for
example when emperor Alexius Comnenus justified
his actions of seizing church property to pay his
soldiers by referring to the earlier examples of
Pericles and the biblical king David.
St Mark from a Byzantine Manuscript
BYZANTINE AND ANCIENT GREECE LITERATURE
The oldest of these three civilizations is the Greek, centered not in
Athens but in Alexandria and Hellenistic civilization. Alexandria
through this period is the center of both Atticizing scholarship and
of Graeco-Judaic social life, looking towards Athens as well as
towards Jerusalem.This intellectual dualism between the culture
of scholars and that of the people permeates the Byzantine period.
Even Hellenistic literature exhibits two distinct tendencies, one
rationalistic and scholarly, the other romantic and popular: the
former originated in the schools of the Alexandrian sophists and
culminated in the rhetorical romance, the latter rooted in the
idyllic tendency of Theocritus and culminated in the idyllic novel.
Both tendencies persisted in Byzantium, but the first, as the one
officially recognized, retained predominance and was not driven
from the field until the fall of the empire. The reactionary
linguistic movement known as Atticism supported and enforced
this scholarly tendency. Atticism prevailed from the second
century B.C. onward, controlling all subsequent Greek culture, so
that the living form of the Greek language was obscured and only
occasionally found expression in private documents and popular
literature.
ANCIENT GREECE LITERATURE
Ancient Greek literature the writings of the ancient Greeks.
The Greek Isles are recognized as the birthplace of Western
intellectual life.
Early Writings
The earliest extant European literary works are the Iliad and
the Odyssey, both written in ancient Greek probably before
700 BC, and attributed to Homer . Among other early epic
poems, most of which have perished, those of Hesiod, the first
didactic poet, remain. The poems dealing with mythological
subjects and known as the Homeric Hymns are dated 800-300
BC Only fragments survive of the works of many early Greek
poets, including the elegiasts Tyrtaeus, Theognis , Solon
,Semonides of Amorgos , Archilochus, and Hipponax. The
most personal Greek poems are the lyrics of Alcaeus,
Sapphoand Anacreon.The Dorian lyric for choral performance,
developed with Alcman , Ibycus, and Stesichorus, achieved
perfection in Pindar, Simonidof Ceos, and Bacchylides.
The Classical Period
Greek drama evolved from the song and dance in the ceremonies honoring
Dionysus at Athens. In the 5th cent. BC tragedy was developed by three of
the greatest dramatists in the history of the theater, Aeschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides.Equally exalted was the foremost exponent of Attic Old
Comedy, Aristophanes . Other writers who developed this genre included
Cratinus and Eupolis, of whom little is known.The rowdy humor of these
early works gave way to the more sedate Middle Comedy and finally to
New Comedy, which set the form for this type of drama. The best-known
writer of Greek New Comedy is Menander.
The writing of history came of age in Greece with the rich and diffuse work
of Herodotus, the precise and exhaustive accounts of Thucydides, and the
rushing narrative of Xenophon. Philosophical writing of unprecedented
breadth was produced during this brief period of Athenian literature; the
works of Plato and Aristotle have had an incalculable effect in the shaping
of Western thought.
Greek oratory, of immense importance in the ancient world, was perfected
at this time. Among the most celebrated orators were Antiphon, Andocides,
Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus, Lycurgus, Aeschines, and, considered the greatest
of all, Demosthenes. "Classical" Greek literature is said to have ended with
the deaths of Aristotle and Demosthenes (c.322 BC). The greatest writers of
the classical era have certain characteristics in common: economy of words,
direct expression, subtlety of thought, and attention to form.
Later Greek Literature
The next period of Greek literature reached its zenith in Hellenistic Alexandria,
where a number of major philosophers, dramatists, poets, historians, critics, and
librarians wrote and taught. New genres such as bucolic poetry emerged during
the Hellenistic period, a time also characterized by scholarly editions of classics
from earlier periods. The poems of Callimachus, the bucolics of Theocritus, and
the epic of Apollonius Rhodiusare recognized as major works of world literature.
The production of literary works at the time of the establishment of Roman
control of the Mediterranean was enormous, a vast heterogeneous mixture
ranging from the sublime to the pedantic and turgid. A great portion of the works
produced have been lost. With the Roman political subjugation of Greece, Greek
thought and culture, introduced largely by slave-tutors to the Roman aristocracy,
came to exert enormous influence in the Roman world. Among the greatest
writers of this period were the historians Polybius, Josephus, and Dio Cassius;
the biographer Plutarch ; the philosophers Philo and Dio Chrysostom; and the
novelist Lucian. One great Roman work produced under Greek influence was the
philosophical meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
With the spread of Christianity, Greek writing took a new turn, and much of the
writing of the Greek Fathers of the Church is eloquent. Religion dominated the
literature of the Byzantine Empire, and a vast treasury of writing was produced
that is not generally well known to the West The most notable exception is the
work of some historians (e.g., Procopius, Anna Comnena, George Acropolita, and
Emperor John VI) and some anthologists (e.g., Photius).
A GENERAL VIEW OF TURKISH LITERATURE
The history of Turkish Literature may be divided into three
periods, reflecting the history of Turkish civilization as
follows: the period up to the adoption of Islam, the Islamic
period and the period under western influence.
A)Turkish Literature Prior to the Adoption of Islam
Turkish literature was the joint product of the Turkish clans
and was mostly oral. The oldest known examples of Turkish
writings are on obelisks dating from the late 7th and early
8th centuries. The Orhun monumental inscriptions written in
720 for Tonyukuk, in 732 for Kültigin and in 735 for Bilge
Kagan are masterpieces of Turkish literature with their
subject matter and perfect style. Turkish epics dating from
those times include the Yaratilis, Saka, Oguz-Kagan,
Göktürk, Uygur and Manas.
The "Book of Dede Korkut", put down in writing in the 14th
century, is an extremely valuable work that preserves the
memory of that epic era in beautiful language.
The Orhun monuments
B)Turkish Literature After the Adoption of Islam
Following Turkish migrations into Anatolia in the wake of the Malazgirt victory
in 1071, the establishment of various Beyliks in Anatolia and the eventual
founding of the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires set the scene for Turkish literature
to develop along two distinct lines, with "divan" or classical literature drawing
its inspiration from the Arabic and Persian languages and Turkish folk literature
still remaining deeply rooted in Central Asian traditions.
Divan poets did not have independent philosophies, they were content to express
the same ideas in different ways. The magnificence of the poet came from his
artistry in finding original and beautiful forms of expression. The most famous
of the Divan poets were Baki, Fuzuli, Nedim and Nef'i.
Initially based on two foreign literary traditions, Arab and Persian, literature
gradually stopped being merely imitative and took on Ottoman national
characteristics.
To a certain extent, the Turkish folk literature which has survived till our day,
reflects the influence of Islam and the new life style and form of the traditional
literature of Central Asia after the adoption of Islam. Turkish folk literature
comprised anonymous works of bard poems and Tekke (mystical religious
retreats) literature. Yunus Emre who lived in the second half of the 13th and
early 14th centuries was an epoch making poet and sufi (mystical philosopher)
expert in all three areas of folk literature as well as divan poetry. Important
figures of poetic literature were Karacaoglan, Atik Ömer, Erzurumlu Emrah and
Kayserili Seyrani.
C) Influence of Western Literature on Turkish Literature
Turkish Literature was influenced by the Western Literature.
Changes in social, economic and political life were reflected
in the literature of the time and the quest for change
continued till the proclamation of the Republic. The
distinguishing characteristic of the era in literature was the
concern with intellectual content rather than esthetic values
or perfection of style. The latest period in literature, which is
known as the Turkish Literature of the Republican period,
came to be influenced by the following literary schools after
Divan literary styles had been abandoned: Tanzimat
(reforms), Servet-i Fünun (scientific wealth), Fecr-i Ati
(dawn of the new age) and Ulusal Edebiyat (national
literature).
The First Private Turkish Newspaper
TANZIMAT ERA
Beginning from the 17th century, The Ottoman Empire started to
go down in the political, military and economical fields.At the
same time, an innovation movement that began with the
Renaissance and kept moving with other reforms took place in the
western world.
The Ottoman Empire opens its gates to the west with the ‘Tanzimat
Fermanı’(an innovation movement in Turkish history) which was
announced in 1839.
The Turkish intellectuals brought up an idea that is: ‘Our people
can benefit from the western improvements in science, technique
and art.’So they are inspired by these improvements.they created
the Tanzimat Literature.The Tanzimat Literature is socialist.It aims
the truth and the good.The writers and poets of this period wanted
to achieve the goal-that is to wake up the society from being
underdeveloped and to end the pressure on people.Also these
writers and poets wanted to build a new literature under the light of
western literature.
Tanzimat Fermanı
The writers,poets and artists of the Tanzimat period,studied at European schools.They took especially
the French literature and French writer Montaigne and the French intellectual J.J Rousseu as a
model.They were inspired by Racine, Corneille, Madame de La Fayette, Victor Hugo,Goethe, Schiller,
Lamartine, Aleksandre Dumas, Voltaire who were the innovators of Classicism and Romantism.The
Turkish intellectuals transferred these writers’ and intellectuals’ advocacy of freedom, rationalistic and
scientific thoughts to the Turkish Literature and basically aimed to spread these thoughts among the
public.
Victor Hugo
J.J Rousseu
Montaigne
Leading figures in the first period (1860-1880) in Tanzimat literature were Sinasi, Ziya Pasa,
Namik Kemal, and Ahmet Mithat Efendi. Leading figures during the second period (1880-1896)
were Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, Abdülhak Hamit, Sami Pasazade Sezai, and Nabizade
Nazim.Tevfik Fikret, Cenap Sahabettin, Süleyman Nazif, Halit Ziya Usakligil, Mehmet Rauf,
Hüseyin Cahit Yalçin and Ahmet Hikmet Müftüoglu are the important representatives of this trend.
Others who adopted the western approach, but who were outside the group, were Ahmet Rasim and
Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpinar who supported the new Turkish literature. Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Yahya
Kemal Beyatli initially followed independent courses and later joined the National Literature
movement. The Tanzimat, Servet-i Fünun and Fecr-i Ati groups who came together to create a
modern Turkish literature made great strides towards this aim, but their works stopped short of
being a national literature with distinctive characteristics. In spirit, it was French-oriented, in
language and style it was traditional and Ottoman.
Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem
Abdülhak Hamit
Sami Pasazade Sezai
Nabizade Nazim
THE PIONEERS OF THIS ERA
NAMIK KEMAL (1840 – 1888)
Rather than focusing on the ideal state, Namık Kemal draws the
portrait of an ideal human being, and concentrates on the issue
“what kind of an individual should one be.” Namık Kemal
maintains that the individual must follow ideals and personally
struggle to attain freedom, progress and development. His drama
was an appeal to personal responsibility, demanding that “the
people” rise to the challenge to secure their freedom. His eulogy to
“Hürriyet” (Freedom) contains seven essential concepts; the
individual and his personal attributes, love of motherland and the
defense of its territorial and political integrity, freedom and the
fight for freedom, reverence to ideals, the need of a national
history, the current state of the homeland, and the portrait of a new
and ideal human being or individual. When he wrote this text that
epitomizes his philosophy of freedom, Kemal was exiled in
Famagusta.
Namık Kemal proclaimed, “Literature does not have a
motherland,” and emphasizede its universality. He also maintained
that literature had to be true to life. Kemal managed to unify his
political struggle with his prolific literary career, and during his
short life he made valuable contributions for the improvement of
the political structure of the Ottoman government.
ZIYA PASHA (1829–1880)
Ziya Pasha was one of the last classical Turk poets. He was
a pioneer who introduced the western thought and culture
to the Turkish society. He revealed his research in the
articles he wrote for “Hurriyet” Journal. He criticised the
government with a simple language he used.In a famous
statement by the poet and reformist Ziya Pasha:
’Our language is not Ottoman; it is Turkish. What makes
up our poetic canon is not gazels and kasîdes, but rather
kayabaşıs, üçlemes, and çöğürs], which some of our poets
dislike, thinking them crude. But just let those with the
ability exert the effort on this road [of change], and what
powerful personalities will soon be born!’
NURULLAH ATAÇ
Ataç has published in most of the significant national newspapers and
journals of the Republican period, and his overall opinion was that
Turkish literature needed to become more western, that it should quit
tightly adhering to the values of the past. Ataç claimed that literature
should be on the side of reason, he frequently criticized flowery and
exaggerated works, and he advocated simplicity and clarity. Ataç
stressed that language used in literary works should be the same as
spoken Turkish, and that this would bridge the communication
breakdown that existed among the various classes of society. Ataç
stressed that literature needed to renew itself, that worn-out tendencies
had to be abandoned, and his approach proved indeed guiding for
many literary figures. Ataç composed lengthy and detailed analyses
about the literary works that he enjoyed; yet when he encountered one
that he did not please him, he did not even bother mentioning it.
ORHAN PAMUK
Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born on 7 June 1952 in Istanbul) generally known simply as
Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish nt. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the
Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and
writing.[1]
One of Turkey's most prominent novelists,his work has sold over seven million
books in more than fifty languages, making him the country's best-selling writer.
Pamuk is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Nobel
Literature Prize 2006-the first Nobel Prize to be awarded to a Turkish citizen.
This is a part of his speech from the Nobel Prize Ceremony:‘What literature needs
most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left
outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that
come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights,
grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts.
Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational,overstated
language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness
inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the
Western world and I can identify with them easily succumbing to fears that
sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of
humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West–a world with
which I can identify with the same ease–nations and peoples taking an excessive
pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the
Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to selfsatisfaction that is almost as stupid.’
MEVLANA
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi is an Anatolian holy
man who gave hope and inspiration to humanity.
Mevlana was born in 1207 in Khorasan, and died
in 1273 in Konya. He took his first lessons from
his father Bahaeddin Veled, who was known as
“sultan of scholars”. While he was studying
Sufism he met Ahi Sems Tebrizi, and after this
meeting his own ideas began to emerge. It is his
poems about Sufism, however, for which he is
chiefly remembered, respected and admired today.
According to Mevlana, love is the only thing
necessary to attain God. A plant or an animal may
also love, but it is only man who has the capacity
to love with his body, mind, thoughts and
memory. Mevlana exalts the state of being in love
with a woman because if someone loves someone
else, he also loves himself, humanity, the universe
and God. The most beautiful love, “Love of
Truth,” begins when someone reaches this level of
wisdom.
Followers of Mevlana (Mevlevi) spin around and around in a
ritual called “sema.” This ritual symbolizes a world united in
love and keeping step with the world’s universal rotation.
While one of their hands points to the sky, the other hand
points to the ground meaning “Love from God spreads to the
earth”. The spirit bursts forth from God and is immortal. The
sound of the nay (a reed flute) tells of man’s longing to return
to his initial source.
He means that the universe is an endless place within the
existence of God, and as a small part of the whole, man keeps
that divine essence inside him by saying, “You who search for
God, it’s you that you’re searching for....” As we see, all
mankind are brothers, and differences between religions do not
square well with the divine presence.
FAMOUS WISE SAYINGS AND POEMS OF MEVLANA
Come, no matter what you are,
Whether atheist or sun worshipper.
Whether you’ve backslid a thousand times,
Come, no matter what you are.
In generosity and helping others be like a river…
In compassion and grace be like the sun…
In concealing others’ faults be like the night…
In anger and fury be like dead…
In modesty and humility be like soil…
In tolerance be like sea…
Either appear as you are, or be as you look.
‘Christian,
Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone,
ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being
with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.’
‘Love is nothing other than finding the truth.’
‘Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside
you.
‘He is a letter to everyone. You open it. It says, 'Live!’
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION
‘
ENJOY THE MULTIVISION SHOW
PREPARED BY:SHEYDA RABIA OZDEN