Abstract
Hiding The Petition in The Literary Garden: On Nabi’s Gulsen-i Devlet
Nabi, who was the most important representative in
Turkish literature of the hikemi genre, lived in the
eighteenth century. The expert poet who had works titled
Divan, Farsça Divançe, Fetihname-i Kamaniçe, Hayriyye,
Hayrabad, Münşe’at, Surname, Tercüme-i Hadis-i
Erba’in, Tuhfetü’l-Harameyn and Zeyl-i Siyer-i Veysi,
influenced many classical school poets, both in the century
he lived and later. This influence was not only from the
aspect of the hikemi genre, but it was also through his
works. This article studied in detail the arzuhâl (petition)
written in verse titled Mesnevî El-Müsemmâ Bi-Gülşen-i
Devlet Bâ-Istılâh-ı Dîvân-ı Hümâyun composed of 182
couplets included in the Turkish Divan (poet’s collected
poems arranged alphabetically) and that has not been
examined in detail in academic studies. Petition, the term
of classical Turkish literature, was defined as written in
verse by a poet that presented the material and spiritual
situation of a statesman, which listed his demands and that
expressed his complaints. Fifty-nine petitions were
determined written in the mesnevi (poem made up of
rhymed couplets, each couplet being of a different rhyme)
genre in classical Turkish poetry. Of these, 13 were written
in the eighteenth century, with three by Nabi. The third
petition of the poet, which is the subject of the article, is the
Gülsen-i Devlet, with its brief name, and displays
originality within the petitions, both for arrangement
attributes and from the aspect of using the literary garden
concept of the Dîvân-ı Hümâyun (Imperial Chancery of
State) expressions and also stated in its title. The introduction of the article mentioned the petition in the
historical and literary context and dwelled upon Nabi’s
first two petitions.
Keywords
Nabi, Gulsen-i Devlet, arzuhal, Divan-ı Humayun, garden culture.