Extracting A Social Type From Divan Poetry: The Example Of The Geda

Abstract

Adjectives such as homeless, beggar, and forlorn describe the geda. Geda, which is one of the most frequently referenced character types in Divan literature, also holds a large place in Navā’ī’s four divans written in Chagatai Turkish. It is also important because it is one of the main characters of the divan poetry tradition and many divan poets including Navā’ī defines themselves as a geda. In this study, the geda, only one of the 150-odd social types identified in our doctoral dissertation study, is discussed. While revealing how the geda is referred to in the poems it is also aimed to present the sociological frame which is applied to all the social types in the dissertation study. After the data obtained by scanning all the poems in divans of Navā’ī are examined, many issues can be detected such as who the geda is, his daily life, his look, etc. In addition to these issues, some deeper sociological points such as why a person becomes a geda, how society looks at him, the place of the geda in social stratification, and his relation to other social types can be determined clearly. It is seen that the poet draws a geda profile, sometimes indirectly through similes, contrasts, or metaphors, sometimes by directly depicting it. This process is called “characterization” in literature and “categorization” in sociology. Studying poems with a sociological framework not only contribute to a better understanding of the usage of characterization in literature it also helps us to understand how and to what extent literature is related to social life. The similarities between the concepts of “type character” of literature and “social type” of sociology will be shown practically; The functionality of preparing a “thematic glossary” in the process of determining the characters or social types from a literary work will be demonstrated.