Abstract:

The 17th century is regarded as a turning point with respect to the developmental process of the Turkish Folk Literature. That century was a period when especially minstrels were in the ascendant.  Minstrels, or poet singers, who are known to have come from among various military classes, travelled together with the army to various places and gatherings far from Istanbul, addressed people and read poems. Three prominent poets from that period whose names spring to mind when it comes to folk poetry in the style of minstrels are Karacaoğlan, Gevherî and Âşık Ömer. All these three poets found favor with the public and their poems won recognition. We can say that Aşık Ömer comes into prominence compared to the other two poets especially due to the fact that he collected his poems in a divan, wrote poems in various kinds of verse and wrote amply. The divan of Aşık Ömer, who is regarded as one of the greatest of Turkish poet-singers, was published in the year 2010. The work in question contains 1455 poems of the poet. However, the poet is estimated to have more than 2000 poems. In this article, poetry journals and cönks at the Turkish Manuscripts Department of the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France) were investigated and in these cönks, fifteen poems of the poet which had not been included in his divan were found. These poems were transcribed in the Latin alphabet, thereby making a small contribution to Âşık Ömer’s divan.

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