Korkut Ata Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi

Abstract

In the Ottoman Empire, it is known that almost every profession that can be associated with entertainment such as rakkas, jugglers, etc. took part in festivities, banquets, and music sessions. Poets contributed to people's enjoyment with the ghazals and odes they recited at these gatherings. Some classical Turkish poets, who loved to have fun and centered entertainment in their poems, frequently included in their poems the entertainment assemblies in the favorite places of the period, the halva conversations and çerağan, which attracted attention in winter entertainments. These activities, which can be considered as important parts of the entertainment culture in the Ottoman period, are handled with different metaphors by the poets of the period.
An 18th-century divan poet, İbrahim Tırsi is characterized as a poet of satire who continues the style of Hevayi, describing almost everything in a sarcastic language. His poems include examples from almost every aspect of daily life. Many elements of the entertainment concept of the period can be identified in his divan. Tırsi dealt with many elements he compiled from daily life and his social environment with his sarcastic approach, aiming to entertain and amuse in the process. In this study, Tırsi's life and poetry are emphasized and his poem with the redif of entertainment is analyzed. By determining the entertainment elements in his divan, the actors who took part in the entertainments were identified, and the entertainments of the period were evaluated through the eyes of Tırsi, who was engaged in different professions other than poetry.