Sabab-i Ta'lîf (Reason for writing) in 14th and 15th century Anatolian Turkish masnavis: Fiction and content

This thesis aims to analyze the sabab-i talif sections of masnavis. Works written in Turkish in the Anatolian field in the 14th and 15th centuries were analyzed. Accordingly, Gülşehrî's Mantıķu't-tayr written in 1317 and Hamdullah Hamdî's Leylā vü Mecnūn written in 1499 and the masnavis in between were included in the scope of the study. The concept of reason for composition is generally used for the section written under a separate title and explaining the reason for the composition of the work. In the complete masnavis, it has been a tradition to write tawhīd, naǾt and munājāt before the main story. The reason for composition is also included in the masnavi as part of this introduction. The study is based on qualitative analysis of the relevant content in the masnavis in addition to literature review and documentation methods. The answers given by the texts to the question of why the work was written and the relationship between these answers and the real reason were analyzed. Since there is no uniform sabab-i talif writing in the entire masnavi literature, different conclusions were reached. The most striking one is the use of narrative in the sabab-i talif texts and the poets' creation of fictional narratives. In the first chapter, the thesis focuses on this fictional structure in this respect and tries to understand and interpret the writing of sabab-i talif from various aspects. In addition, the content of the sabab-i talif is analyzed separately in the second chapter. It was found that the poets expressed their poetic views in the sabab-i talif texts in addition to the expectations they hoped for by writing a work.