Soil in the divan poetry

Soil holds an important place in human life. Human beings have processed a space to eat and shelter thanks to soil. The importance of soil for human beings has lead soil to have been mentioned in the written sources in progress of time. The elements related with soil have been included in many literary texts for miscellaneous reasons. And in the divan poetry, many poets were affected by the soil's features such as worthlessness, color and macabre and so on, and they processed such features in their poems by virtue of the literary arts. In our thesis, we have made an effort to reveal the place, usage forms and features of soil in the divan poetry under favor of the example couplets selected from the divan poets belonging to the 14th-19th centuries. Furthermore, by including the words being synonymous with the word "soil", we have determined and assessed the elements related with these words. We have taken a look at how the objects made of soil were processed in the divan poetry. By making use of the examples mention here above, we have tried to give the detailed information about the features of soil which is one of the four fundamental elements, and about its place in the Islamic religion, mysticism, mythology and Turkish culture, and about how it is handled in the religion, nature and social life, and about the objects made of soil, and about the lover and darling affair and so on. This study such made is based on the texts and has been achieved by taking the selected example couplets essential. By presenting the numerical breakdown of the examples of the words related with soil contained in the selected divan texts in the tables and figures, the general situation has been revealed statistically. Key Words: Divan poetry, soil, dust, four elements.