Abstract
Masnavi Titled “Bülbüliyye” by 19th Century Poet İlmî
Talking about long narratives in Classical Turkish
poetry, the first thing that comes to mind are the
‘masnavis’. Poems written using this poetry form
structured with short patterns of aruz prosody mostly
because they involve long narratives, have covered
numerous stories about religion, politics, ethics, Sufism,
love etc. Masnavis written above love from among all other
topics mentioned above, have a special place in classical
Turkish poetry. One of the love masnavis which are very
common in classical Turkish poetry are the “gül-ü-bülbül
masnavis”. Many different poets have covered this wellknown
love story between the rose and the mockingbird in
their poems under titles like gül-ü-bülbül, bülbülnâme or
bülbüliyye and have written many different masnavis
about it. One of the poets who wrote gül-ü-bülbül
masnavis was İlmî. As a 19th century poet, İlmî is
originally from Maraş in Turkey. While the Poet’s exact
date of birth is unknown, his full name was Ali İlmî and
was known with the nickname “Çelebi-zâde”. The poet was
actually a descendent of Nurullah Çelebi who was known
to be a descendent of Prophet Hussein who had moved to
Elbistan in 15th century and of Zeynelâbidîn. This study
covers the masnavi titled Bülbüliyye written by İlmî. The
study presents general information on gül-ü-bülbül
masnavis, emphasizes the place of Bülbüliyye among other
gül-ü-bülbül masnavis, discusses the possibility of the
piece to have been written by Çelebizâde Ali İlmî from
Maraş, and analyzes the piece in terms of masnavi style,
structure and content and presents a transcribed version
of the piece.
Keywords
İlmî, bülbüliyye, gül ü bülbül, masnavi.