- Ali Rıza ÖZUYGUN

Literature and literary works have made humans feel their presence all throughout their existence. Language, which emerged as a tool to communicate, is the main source of literary works.Therefore, studies which aimed to understand and interpret the language have been a very common practice during various periods. Structuralism, which emerged as a reaction to comparative linguistics of 17th century, is associated with its founder Ferdinand De Saussure. The novelty that he introduced to the filed of Linguistics is, to view a language as a ‘system’. Saussure evaluates the language as a colony of words. In this sense, Classical Turkish Literature poetry is worth investigating in terms of structure and system, and word and meaning. Classical Turkish Literature poetry is valuable source to be investigated in terms of its embedded meaning and unique structure. It will help the contemporary reders to interpret those texts from structuralist approach, besides the classical commentary. This approach saves these takes from being possessed only by history. After a period of six centuries ruling, the Ottoman Empire marked the magnificence of the period by leaving behind large number of precious literary works of the period. Literary works of poets and writers of that period are worth examining and interpreting. Nef’î is of the representatives of that period. This article investigates ghazels by Nefî, who is one of the most important ode writers of the period, from the perspective of structuralism. Firstly, a diachronic study of odes to the classic commentary tradition method is carried out. Then, the method of simultaneous examination according to the structuralist literary theory has been applied, which is proven to be applicable in many areas in contemporary literary criticism. As a result, ghazels have been evaluated according to their meaning and structure, and their aesthetic value has been determined.

Keywords

Nef'î, Commentary, structuralism, Classical Turkish Literature, Ghazals, değil