Social criticism in classical Turkish prose (16th century)

Classical Turkish literature has been nourished by two main veins, verse and prose, in a tradition that has lasted and continued for centuries. When the studies on the classical Turkish literature are examined, since the works are written mostly in poetry form, it is seen that the priority is given to poetic works, and the prose is often neglected. However, many genres such as history, biography (tazkira), book of government (siyasatnama), advice (nasihatnama), etc. have been written in prose form, starting from the early works in the clasical Turkish literature. As Ottoman prose-writing developed gradually, the prominent prose works were written over the centuries. Despite the unfair criticism, the prose writers did not ignore social issues, similar to the diwan poets, and they discussed about social problems in their works. In this respect, these literary works also can be considered a sociological source. In this thesis, a selection has been made over the texts containing criticism among the Turkish prose works written in the 16th century, and has been determined the social criticism in these works. It has been tried to be established the relationship of the texts with social life and history.