POET BIOGRAPHIES AT AHMED RIFAT EFENDI’S DICTIONARY OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

Abstract The subject of this article is thebiographies of the poets in the encyclopedic work Dictionary of History and Geography of Yaglikci-zade Ahmed Rifat Efendi (d.1312/1894) who known as encyclopedia, history and dictionary writer at the the period of Tanzimat. This work, known as an encyclopedia of history and geography, contains some biographies of some poets and litterateurs as well. It is the main purpose of this article to take attention to this aspect of the work and to present the biographies of the poets to the benefit of the researchers, although these poets are famous poets, Thebiographies of the figures known with poeticand litterateur identities were identified in seven volumed printed copy of the work and transcribed to the current Turkish alphabet. It’s been considered poets and litterateurs besides well-known personalities, sufistic personalities, scholars, and statesmen or the people come to the forefront with other specialities. We paid attention that these individuals were from the field of Turkish Literature. We detected Dictionary of History and Geography 45 biographies of poets belonging to almost every period of Turkish Literature in the work. These biographies have been subjected to a general evaluation within the framework of the life and litterateur personality of the poets.

Keywords

Ahmed Rifat Efendi, Dictionary of Historyand Geography, biography, poet