Yunus Emre and His Mystical Poetry

Anadolu tasavvuf geleneğini ve Türkçenin bir edebiyat dili olarak gelişimini derinden etkileyen Yunus Emre’nin şiirleri, Talât Sait Halman’ın derlediği bu inceleme kitabıyla yeniden uluslararası okuyucu kitlesinin dikkatine sunuluyor. Türk edebiyatı ve İslam mistisizminin önde gelen uzmanlarınca yazılmış İngilizce makaleleri bir araya getiren bu eserde; Andreas Tietze, Yunus Emre’yi kendi döneminin Avrupalı mistik şairleriyle karşılaştırıyor. Annemarie Schimmel, Yunus’u İslam dünyasının genel tasavvuf kültürü içerisinde değerlendiriyor. İlhan Başgöz, Yunus’un şiirlerine dayanarak onun yaşamını ve düşüncelerini mercek altına alıyor. John R. Walsh, Yunus Emre şiirlerini birer ilahi olarak incelerken, Mehmet Kaplan bu eserleri metafizik açıdan yorumluyor.

Talât Sait Halman ise Yunus’un şiirlerindeki hümanizmi gözler önüne seriyor. Kitapta Yunus Emre’nin pek çok şiirinin İngilizce çevirisine de yer veriliyor One of the first poets in Anatolia to have composed poetry in Turkish, Yunus Emre (d. ca. 1320) had a profound impact on the development of Turkish as a literary language and the flourishing of an Anatolian mystical tradition. His work has indeed retained its ethical and aesthetic relevance to this day. This volume brings together essays by some of the most well-known scholars of Islamic mysticism and Turkish language and literature to shed light on the poetry of Yunus from different perspectives. Andreas Tietze compares Yunus Emre with the European mystic poets of his time. Annemarie Schimmel evaluates the poet within the context of Islamic mysticism in general. İlhan Başgöz examines Yunus Emre’s life and the evolution of his ideas based on the evidence extracted from his poems. John R. Walsh explores Yunus Emre’s poems in terms of their function as hymns, while Mehmet Kaplan analyzes the metaphysical aspects of the poet’s work. Talât Sait Halman’s contribution surveys the humanistic concepts in the poems composed by this great Anatolian mystic. The book also offers a wide selection of Yunus Emre’s poems translated into English.

Talât Sait Halman (1931–2014) was a poet, scholar, and translator of Turkish literature into English and English literature into Turkish. He taught at Columbia, Princeton, NYU, and Bilkent University.