Moral Masnavi Poems in Anatolian Turkish Literature
This seminar examines the rich masnavi tradition in classical Turkish literature, where religious, Sufi, and moral elements converge. While evaluating the scope of moral masnavis and the challenges of their classification, Prof. Dr. Emine Yeniterzi reveals the thematic and structural connections these works establish with the genres of nasihatnâme, fütüvvetnâme, and siyasetnâme. Through major examples such as Mevlânâ’s Mesnevî, Yunus Emre’s Risâletü’n-Nushiyye, and Âşık Paşa’s Garibnâme, the seminar focuses on how these texts articulate moral teaching and how they function on both individual and social levels. Emphasizing that moral masnavis are not only a literary genre but also a central vehicle for the transmission of values and the formation of a Sufi worldview, the seminar draws attention to the continuity of this tradition in Anatolian Turkish literature and to its cultural influence.
She graduated from the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at the Faculty of Letters, Selçuk University, in 1981. In the field of Old Turkish Literature, she completed her master’s degree in 1983 with the thesis titled The Names and Attributes of the Prophet in Divan Poetry – Esmâ-i Nebî, and her doctorate in 1989 with the dissertation Na‘t in Divan Poetry. She continued her academic career at Selçuk University between 1981 and 2011, and at Istanbul Medeniyet University between 2011 and 2015. She currently works at the Institute for Sufi Studies at Üsküdar University. She also serves as the Coordinator of Research Programs for the Department of Literature at the Kenan Center for Turkish Cultural Studies (Boston). Her main fields of study include classical Turkish poetry, text commentary, religious-moral-Sufi masnavis, verse religious genres, and Mevlânâ Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī. She is the author of nine books, as well as articles published in academic journals and papers presented at national and international scholarly conferences.