Abstract:

Death is one of the topics covered around varying contents in the classic literature. One of the content is the desire to die. In the classic literature, poets, in the love poems and poems written about the military expeditions for religion and homeland, express desire to die (martyrdom) for the sake of darling and religion-homeland. In some love masnavis and prose love stories, it is also seen that heroes of these stories also sustain the desire to die. There is the impact of mystical insights blended with Islamic understanding on the basis of the desire to die. Poets provide their mystical comments as, in mystic, person need to eliminate their desire of word to spirit their existence off for the sake of God. Love is thought as unconditionally loving God and the idea of giving life is highlighted as a way for carrying people to absolute unity. The mystical understanding of love highlighted in almost all work written about love. By the impact of this approach, both, poets who see themselves as lover and the heroes they stated in their stories hold desire to die for the sake of their darling. Some of the soldier poets has glorified homeland and religion instead of their beloved. Battlefield is known as a place where poet volunteerly willing to die for sake of beloved. Suicide is the most advanced version of the desire to die. Even if the idea of suicide is not acceptable in the Turkish culture and literature because of religious reasons, the idea and act of suicide exist in some of the stories. The only reason to make a hero to commit suicide is love. In some of other stories, a hero, who cannot bear to be apart from his beloved or wants to show an example of loyalty, prayes God in order to take his life instead of committing suicide.

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