Central Asia Workshop: Rethinking the Ottoman Imitation of Persian Poetry

A presentation by Murat Umut Inan

Thursday, January 14, 2016
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Bunche Hall 11372

This article revisits the general tendency to view and approach Ottoman poetry as a pallid imitation of Persian poetry. To this end, the article explores how Ottoman poets engaged with the Persian poetry they inherited by focusing on a lyric poem composed by the Ottoman sultan Süleyman I (1520‒1566) and modeled after the opening poem in the poetry collection of Hafiz of Shiraz (ca. 1315‒1390). Murat will begin by providing a brief historical survey of the discourse of imitation that has prevailed in various approaches to and discussions of Ottoman poetry in particular and Ottoman literature in general. Then he argues, through a comparative analysis of Süleyman’s poem, that the Ottoman poem features creative reworkings and poetic inventions that go beyond simple imitation. Murat concludes by discussing the significance of an intertextual perspective in terms of providing new insights into the ways in which Ottoman poets appropriated and refashioned Persian poetic models in crafting their poetry.