COVER ILLUSTRATION: Detail of Nizamî. Hamse, Topkapi Palace Museum, Hazine 760, fol. 246b. By permission. |
Ottoman Lyric Poetry AN ANTHOLOGY by Walter G. Andrews * Najaat Black * Mehmet Kalpakli University of Washington Press "This is the finest literary translation of Ottoman Turkish lyrics ever done and will shape the reception of the poetry from now on. The selection is excellent -- aesthetically superior, historically representative, and stylistically coherent." VICTORIA HOLBROOK, Associate Professor of Turkish, Ohio State University.
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Like a treasure-filled storehouse to which we have lost the key,
Ottoman lyric poetry is almost unknown today, particularly among
Western readers. Yet, during the centuries in which the Ottoman Empire
was one of the world's great powers, poetry was its central medium of
cultural expression. From love to the most profound search for
spiritual truth to impassioned pleas for employement or largesse,
everything that touched people deeply was expressed in poetry.
This anthology, the first major English translation of Ottoman poetry in nearly a century, unlocks the storehouse. The authors offer free verse translations of 75 lyric poems (whose original Ottoman Turkish texts are also included), spanning a period from the fourteenth through the early twentieth centuries. |
In addition to the poems, the authors provide concise background
information on Ottoman history and literature, informative notes to
the poems, and brief biographies of the poets. These materials give
students and general readers sufficient context to understand the
poems, without burdening the reading experience.
Walter G. Andrews is retired from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington, Najaat Black is a poet and fiction writer. Mehmet Kalpakli teaches at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul. |
The book can be ordered directly from the University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-295-98595-X, paperback ($20.00) Instructions for ordering the book from University of Washington Press Any copying and duplication of material from these Web pages is prohibited. For permission to photocopy or reprint or in any way use poems from OTTOMAN LYRIC POETRY: AN ANTHOLOGY, send a request to Rights and Permissions, University of Washington Press. |