Özet:

Abstract Views about poetry were shared in the forewords of tezkires (biographical memoirs), in the prefaces of divans (collected poems), in the pretext compilations of mesnevis (poem made up of rhymed couplets, each couplet being of a different rhyme), in fahriyes (classical Ottoman poetry in which poet praises himself) of kasides (poem of more than fifteen rhyming distiches in which a person is praised), and in the matla’ beyits (first couplets of a poem) of gazels (lyric poems of a certain form). Poetry was regarded as inferior by some sectors, and they opposed poetry. In response to this, the Divan poets strove to defend poetry. Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi, one of the sixteenth century biographical memoir authors, made an effort to defend poetry with verses from the Holy Koran and hadiths, both in the prefaces of the biographical memoirs of poets and in the İtâb-gûne Tezkiresi (Reprimanding Biographical Memoir), which will be treated in this article. In the direction of the explanations made above, it will be attempted in this study to examine in detail the poetry surrounding Hasan Çelebi’s treatise and his defense of poets and the viewpoint on poetry of the biographical memoir authors of the sixteenth century Divan poets. In the introduction of the article, general information was given on the views of philosophers about poetry and later about the views of the Divan poets and the source of the reactions against poetry was mentioned. In the continuation of the study, the thoughts about poetry by the sixteenth century biographical memoir authors were provided. Subsequently, the treatise titled İtâb-gûne Tezkiresi by Kınalızâde Hazan Çelebi, which defended with rumors developing around poetry, verses of the Holy Koran, hadiths, and the Prophet Muhammad, was transcribed and was studied in detail from the aspect of contents. Whereas, in the conclusion it was attempted to explain the reasons for the reactions against poetry because of the defense with similar expressions by the poets and Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi’s poetry.