The Celestial Sphere, the Wheel of Fortune, and Fate in the Gazels of Nâʾilî and Bâkî

Abstract

The poet known as Bâkî (d. 1600), the “King of Poets” of Sultan Suleiman I (1520–66), is generally acknowledged as the leading figure of the so-called “classical age” of Ottoman poetry (roughly from the mid-15th to the beginning of the 17th century), while the poet known as Nâʾilî (d. 1666) was a pivotal figure in the break between this classical age and the “post-classical age,” roughly the early modern era extending from 1600 to 1800. On the broadest level this break was signaled by a change in the use of metaphorical language. This paper will contrast the treatment of one series of metaphors common in the lyric gazels within the divâns of both poets, although further examples could be found within other poetic genres, especially the panegyric kasîde. It will also attempt to interpret the significance of these metaphors in Nâʾilî's poetry and to demonstrate their distance from the usage of the classical Ottoman period, exemplified by Bâkî.