Abstract:

The pen has a religious and functional place in the Ottoman culture. Its importance in religious terms is based on verses of the Quran and hadiths. The fact that it is included in verses and hadiths and gave its name to Surat al-Qalam has given blessings to both the pen and the documents written in pen. The fact that today’s audiovisual recording devices and communication devices accomplish their duties alone reveals the importance of the pen in functionality. Divan poets gave importance to the pen more than that of other segments of society. Besides, divan poets earned various rankings with their pens and made a living. Divan poets sometimes used the words “kalem, hame, kilk” as an honorary element, and they meant their artistic style with these words. In addition to being a writing tool, they also employed the pen as a metaphor to express their poetic abilities. Individuals using Turkish in the Ottoman culture integrated the poets and writers with the “pen” in a way that they directly used the term “pen” along with the expressions such as “pen owner, pen connoisseur” to express them. Poets created a rich world of imaginations and metaphors around the “pen” because they were so intertwined with it. In the study, the couplets about the personality traits attributed to the pen in the world of imagination and metaphor mentioned above, and the pen’s shape and function were determined. Within this context, the study aims to reveal the “nature” and “appearance” of the pen.

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