Turkish literature

Turkish literature (Turkish: Türk edebiyatı, Türk yazını) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Turkish language. The Ottoman form of Turkish, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was highly influenced by Persian and Arabic literature, and used the Ottoman Turkish alphabet.

The history of the broader Turkic literature spans a period of nearly 1,300 years. The oldest extant records of written Turkic are the Orhon inscriptions, found in the Orhon River valley in central Mongolia and dating to the 7th century. Subsequent to this period, between the 9th and 11th centuries, there arose among the nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia a tradition of oral epics, such as the Book of Dede Korkut of the Oghuz Turks— ancestors of the modern Turkish people—and the Epic of Manas of the Kyrgyz people.

Beginning with the victory of the Seljuks at the Battle of Manzikert in the late 11th century, the Oghuz Turks began to settle in Anatolia, and in addition to the earlier oral traditions there arose a written literary tradition issuing largely—in terms of themes, genres, and styles—from Arabic and Persian literature. For the next 900 years, until shortly before the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, the oral and written traditions would remain largely separate from one another. With the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the two traditions came together for the first time.

The earliest known examples of Turkic poetry date to sometime in the 6th century AD and were composed in the Uyghur language. Some of the earliest verses attributed to Uyghur Turkic writers are only available in Chinese language translations. During the era of oral poetry, the earliest Turkic verses were intended as songs and their recitation a part of the community's social life and entertainment. For example, in the shamanistic and animistic culture of the pre-Islamic Turkic peoples verses of poetry were performed at religious gatherings in ceremonies before a hunt (sığır), at communal feasts following a hunt (şölen). Poetry was also sung at solemn times and elegy called sagu were recited at yuğ funerals and other commemorations of the dead.

Of the long epics, only the Oğuzname has survived in its entirety. The Book of Dede Korkut may have had its origins in the poetry of the 10th century but remained an oral tradition until the 15th century. The earlier written works Kutadgu Bilig and Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk date to the second half of the 11th century and are the earliest known examples of Turkish literature with few exceptions.

One of the most important figures of early Turkish literature was the 13th century Sufi poet Yunus Emre. The golden age of Ottoman literature lasted from the 15th century until the 18th century and included mostly divan poetry but also some prose works, most notably the 10-volume Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels) written by Evliya Çelebi.

The periodization of Turkic literature is debated and scholars have floated different proposals to classify the stages of Turkic literary development. One proposal divides Turkic literature into early literature (8th to 19th c.) and modern (19th to 21st c.). Other systems of classification have divided the literature into three periods either pre-Islamic/Islamic/modern or pre-Ottoman/Ottoman/modern. Yet another more complex approach suggests a 5-stage division including both pre-Islamic (until the 11th century) and pre-Ottoman Islamic (between the 11th and 13th centuries). The 5-stage approach further divides modern literature into a transitional period from the 1850s to the 1920s and finally a modern period reaching into the present day.

Throughout most of its history, Turkish literature has been rather sharply divided into two different traditions, neither of which exercised much influence upon the other until the 19th century. The first of these two traditions is Turkish folk literature, and the second is Turkish written literature.