A History of Ottoman Poetry Volume 1 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. The Beginning Of Secular Poetry. Teftazanf. Cadi Burhan-ud-Dfn. The earliest West-Turkish poets, the men whose work we have been considering, were all avowedly and exclusively mystics. But before the dawn of the fifteenth century a new note was struck, and secular, or at least quasi-secular, poetry ? the eternal blending of love and religion renders dogmatising dangerous ? made its appearance alongside of verse confessedly mystic and naught beside. Before, however, we turn our attention to the valiant and adventurous Judge who, so far as we know, was the first to invoke the new spirit, we shall glance for a moment at a work which though only a translation calls for a brief mention in these pages. In his article already referred to, Veled Chelebi, after a few remarks on cAshiq's Gharfb-Name, goes on to say that the next work in Turkish poetry is a versified translation of Sacdf's Bustan or 'Orchard' made in 755 (1354) by the great and famous Persian schoolman Sacd-ud-Din Mescud-i Teftazanf. Of this translation, I have seen no other mention; it is not referred to by either Katib Chelebi or Von Hammer, nor is it spoken of in any work Oriental or European that has come under my notice. But Vcled Chelebi says that he has examined it, and quotes a few of the opening lines as a specimen of its style. These show that Teftazanf's version is in the same metre as the original and, if they are fairly representative of the whole, that his translation is very close. There are in Turkish several commentaries on the Bustan, notably those by Sururf, Shemcf, and S,idf, aM of whom nourished in the sixteenth century; but I am not aware of any other translation. Teftazanf, the translator, is one of the greatest scholars of Islam; it is he who resuscitated Muhammedan learnin...