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Rethinking the Ottoman Imitation of Persian Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Murat Umut Inan
Murat Umut Inan*
Affiliation:
Social Sciences University of Ankara, Turkey
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Abstract

This article revisits the common discourse that Ottoman poetry is a derivative imitation of Persian poetry. I begin by surveying and discussing the discourse of imitation that has pervaded approaches to Ottoman poetry in particular and Ottoman literature in general. Then I turn to explore how Ottoman poets engaged with Persian poetry by focusing on a lyric poem composed by the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1494‒1566) in imitation of the Persian master poet Hafiz of Shiraz (ca. 1315‒90). In light of intertextual analysis, I illustrate and discuss the intricate ways in which Süleyman models himself on Hafiz in crafting his poem. I conclude with the idea that a closer analytical look at Ottoman poets’ intertextual dialogue with Persian poetry can offer better insights into the Ottoman reception of Persian poetic models as well as into the meaning and workings of imitation in the Ottoman literary context.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , September 2017 , pp. 671 - 689
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2017

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this article was awarded the 2010 Graduate Student Paper Prize by the Middle East Studies Association of North America. Murat Umut Inan thanks Walter G. Andrews, Ferenc Csirkés, Nile Green, Domenico Ingenito, Sevim Kebeli, Selim S. Kuru, Paul Losensky, and Firoozeh Papan-Matin for their feedback on earlier drafts of this article. He also thanks two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.

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