KEÇECİZÂDE İZZET MOLLA’NIN MİHNET-KEŞÂN’INDA KADIN

Abstract

The position of women in Turkish society has undergone changes over the centuries due to social, political and religious reasons. In the historical process, this change is generally divided into three groups as pre-Islamic, Islamic and Western-influenced periods. During the pre-Islamic nomadic life style, women were extremely active in the society and had the same rights as men, but after the acceptance of Islam, the position of women changed, isolated from social life and even devalued. This is due to the fact that the cultures of other nations were included in Turkish culture under the name of religion with the acceptance of the new religion. Since Classical Turkish literature, which has a history of six centuries between the XIII and XIX centuries, is a literature that emerged in the field of Islamic civilization, the view of women in the works of this period was negative in parallel with the social point of view. In the study, Keçecizâde İzzet Molla's masnavi named Mihnet-Keşân was examined as an example of the reflection of this situation on literary works. The work, completed by İzzet Molla in 1825, was written at a time when the effect of Westernization began to appear in our literature in all aspects. The work, unlike the tradition, reflects the social structure of the period from a realistic point of view. In this aspect, the couplets containing the reflections of the woman's point of view in the work, which is the messenger of innovations in Turkish literature, have been determined and interpreted. Keywords: Classical Turkish Literature, Gender, Sergüzeştname