Abstract:

Folk stories have a wide place in traditional Turkish literature as an oral literary product. The stories, such as Leylâ and Mecnûn, Ferhad and Şirin, Kerem and Aslı, Vâmık and Azra, Tahir and Zühre, Hüsrev and Şirin, that have been described throughout the centuries and developed in various variants have a great prospect in terms of folklore and folk literature as products reflecting the cultures, language and world perception of the folk. However, these stories have not only remained verbal literary products. It is seen that these accounts, some of which are reinterpreted through the works of mesnevi form in classical Turkish literature, are also evaluated by the artists in modern Turkish literature. The authors, who see traditional narratives as a source, have rewritten these stories by making some changes in fiction and form. An example of this is the theater play Kerem and Aslı written in 1944 by Selahattin Batu, a writer of the Republican period. In this work, the author reinterpreted Kerem and Aslı, one of the most common folk stories in Anatolia. It is noteworthy that in the work, new approaches are exhibited by moving away from the classical structure of the story and that it is desired to reach the fluency of traditional narratives with the form of verse theater. On the other hand, there are similarities and differences from the story in the use of motifs in the work. In this article, variants of the folk story Kerem and Aslı and the theater play Kerem and Aslı by Selahattin Batu will be evaluated together to show how a theatrical work is fed from a traditional narrative; in particular, it will be tried to determine the place of the work by emphasizing the elements and motifs in the play.

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