Abstract
Poems About The Famines In Divan Poetry
Since the beginning of history, mankind has been in
constant struggle against natural disasters. From the early
ages to today, natural disasters have always existed as a
problem to be overcome for the human being. One of these
natural disasters is famine. There have been countless famines
in different parts of the world. The Ottoman Empire
was one of the states that had their share of famines. The
Ottoman had to deal with various problems of scarcity of
food in almost every period from its foundation to its collapse.
It is possible to see the famines and their negative consequences
in the texts of the Ottoman poetry bearing traces
of the daily life of the Ottomans. The Divan poets did not
remain silent on famines, which deeply affected a large part
of the society and caused them to experience great negativity,
and mentioned this issue in their poems. From the
15th century to the beginning of the 20th century, there
were many poetry texts written by the Divan poets, which
can be considered within the kahtiyye literary genre. In
this study, in order to reveal the relationship between the
Divan poetry and social life, information about the famines
in the Ottoman Empire was given in summary and stands
as the reflection of those famines and some samples of these
poems were analyzed.
Keywords
Ottoman, Divan Poetry, Famine, Hunger, Literary Genre, Kahtiyye.