Abstract


A General View To The Genre And Form Discussions
The question of what should be understood from “genre” and “form” in the folk poetry is one of the main problems of the researchers who conduct studies on the Turkish Language and Literature and on the Turkish folk literature, in particular. The discussions on genre and form begin from the pre-Islamic poem samples and continue with the contemporary folk poems read by folk singers. Ambiguity concerning the terms is resulted from the absence of written sources in the folk literature. Another reason for the ambiguity is the absence of certain boundaries indicating whether a poem is a genre or a form. In this context, some researchers define koşma, mani, and epic poem as form while some others accepts koşma and mani, even just koşma, as verse form. Within the framework of these discussions, while studying folk poems, some researchers state that not only varieties of poems in terms of form and subject but also motif should be considered. They urged that the main deficiency of literature books should be sought here. In this frame, they included subject and motif to the term of “type” and regarded the form as an element of “extern”. Some researchers added measurement and rhyme to the saying of “there is no form in the folk poetry but genre” and they asserted that there is no form for a poem without a rhyme form. In this discussion, koşma, in particular, mani and epic have been classified according to different approaches. By some researchers, only koşma is accepted as a form while some others considered koşma and mani as forms. On the other hand, epic was accepted as both form and genre by some researchers. As it was mentioned above, it has been seen that researchers asserted different opinions from each others. In this study, these views will be given and the frame of these discussions will be drawn. Thus, the sides of a half-century long matter will be got together and a general view or even a bird’s eye view will be provided.

Keywords
Genre, Form, Folk Poetry, Koşma, Mani, Epic.



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