Abstract:

Minstrelsy tradition is a tradition that has its own performance custom, tradition-based structure, and rules that must be followed to maintain minstrelsy. The tradition has been kept alive until today as an important branch of Turkish literature and has expressed the feelings, thoughts, beliefs and values of the Turkish people. Although it seems that female minstrels are mostly ignored in the tradition, studies in this field reveal the existence of a significant number of female minstrels. Behiye Köksel identified the need for an independent study on female lovers. She made a significant contribution to this field with her work titled Female Minstrels in the 20th Century Minstrel Poetry Tradition. The work consists of five chapters except the Introduction and Conclusion parts. In the introduction of the work, the place of women in Turkish culture and folk literature is briefly mentioned. While the first part includes literature evaluation, in the second part, evaluations are made in the context of the upbringing conditions of female minstrels and the environment in which they perform their art. In the third chapter, the concept of minstrel and the tradition of minstrelsy are explained and the place of women in the tradition is mentioned. In the fourth chapter, the social roles of female minstrels and the reflections of these roles in their poems are examined. In the fifth chapter, examples from the poems of female minstrels are evaluated in the context of tradition.

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