architectural images of the beloved and the lover in 16th-century ottoman 273

. " VILDAN SERDAROGLU

WHEN LITERATURE AND ARCHITECTURE MEET: ARCHITECTURAL IMAGES OF THE BELOVED AND THE LOVER IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY

Ottoman poetry, that is, poetry written in the Ottoman from architectural monuments, with reference both territories between the fourteenth and the nineteenth to physical resemblances and to abstract qualities— century, is primarily structured around three main fig- beauty, attractiveness, or the inspiration of awe. The ures: the lover (most often either the himself or reason for this, as Ahmet Hamdi Tanpænar observes,10 a poet-persona),1 the beloved (the sultan, a person in is that the architectural sphere was where the zenith a higher position, or an actual beloved), and the rival of artistic creativity and production was achieved in (a person or a thing attempting to obstruct the rela- the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, in Istan- tionship between the lover and the beloved). Almost bul in particular and the in general. every genre of Ottoman poetry is replete with subtle The power of classical (ca. 1450– descriptions of the emotions of the lover (the poet) 1680) also affected the common people and, as Victor aroused by interactions with these other characters. Hugo noted,11 played an important role in the devel- In the course of describing their emotions, Ottoman opment of architecture elsewhere in the world. utilized a variety of metaphors, originating not The intention to create a strong impact on the pop- only from their imaginary world but also from the ulation, one that would highlight the power and mag- material world that surrounded them. These meta- nificence of the state, greatly influenced the forms of phors were also the criteria by which poets’ artistic classical Ottoman architecture. Sultans, sultans’ wives creativity and success were measured. To devise them, and daughters, and viziers and pashas built vast num- poets drew on such themes as religious beliefs and bers of mosques, palaces, schools, dervish convents, practices, local customs, eating habits, sartorial fash- fountains, and imarets (charity soup kitchens) through- ion, entertainment, and architectural monuments. In out the empire. The many poems, stories, and legends this article, I will demonstrate how sixteenth-century about those architectural works confirm how inspiring Ottoman poets utilize architectural imagery to create and thought-provoking the buildings were for those metaphors describing the physical properties of the who viewed them. Not only Ottoman but also Byzan- beloved, and, with particular emphasis on the poeti- tine buildings affected the imaginary world of contem- cal genres of and , I will analyze how porary writers.12 In sum, the sixteenth century was a architectural elements are represented. century of architecture for the Ottomans. In poetry, My main literary sources are the divans (poetry col- metaphoric usage, in which qualities of one concept lections) of Tacizade Cafer Çelebi (d. 1515),2 Zati,3 are “borrowed” to represent another,13 were influenced Fevri,4 and Baki;5 Tezkiretü’l-ebniye (Memoir of Build- by the architectural grandiosity of the time. For exam- ings) of Sa{i (d. 1595),6 Evª¸f-æ ~stanbul (Characteris- ple, the beloved was metaphorically associated with tics of Istanbul) of Latifi (d. 1582); 7 and Ýadº_atü’l- sacred and well-proportioned monuments. Physical cev¸mi{ (Garden of Mosques) of Ayvansarayi (d. 1787).8 properties of the beloved, which are often the start- Among these, two versions of Zati’s in manu- ing point in Ottoman poetry, resemble elements of script form are in the Süleymaniye Library.9 The rest the mosque complex in shape and meaning. His or have been published. her face resembles a mihrab with golden inscriptions In this article, I will argue that the beloved and the on it. His or her body is tall and grand like a minaret. lover in the sixteenth-century poet’s imaginary world Likewise he or she is a hospital that provides healing were often depicted by means of metaphors derived for those who are sick with love, etc. The lover, too, is . " 274 vildan serdaroglu likened to architectural objects: his eyes, like a foun- metaphor derives not only from the poet’s literary tain, never cease flowing; his heart is a palace in which or artistic imagination but also from that imagination the sultan (the beloved) lives. By bringing together applied to the materials of the concrete, physical world the beloved, the lover, and architectural objects in a in which the poet lived. In one part of my work on metaphoric context, the Ottoman poet provides us Zati, I approached the relationship between poetry, with rich information about Ottoman architecture art, and architecture by examining poetic imagery, and its meaning for Ottoman society. manuscript painting, and other artistic materials To date, Ottoman literature and poetry have been in combination. I showed that Zati used his poetic studied primarily from two perspectives. First, the Otto- imagination in describing different characteristics of man literary corpus became the subject of ahistorical public architectural units, such as palaces, mosques, textual and linguistic analysis. The primary examples schools, hospitals, fountains, libraries, and the like. In of this acontextual approach assume that the mean- some couplets architectural elements are mentioned ings of the poetic ma¾m¢ns (conceits) remained static together with references to their social functions, over time. Second, the corpus became the target of whereas in others purely architectural values or features certain historians of Ottoman literature who utilized are cited. The following couplet can be given as an collections of poetry as repositories of information, example of the way I examine the poetry: detaching the information from the literary and artis- tic components of the poetry and avoiding any refer- Bahâr-º ¥üsnüñ itmi× ey perî _andîli dîvâne ence to the larger cultural and historical significance. Aña ×erbet virüb Òüddâm-æ câmi{ çekdi zencîre There are also works limited to the analysis of one divan only. For example, within the studies known as O fairy! The spring of your beauty made the oil lamp divan tahlilleri (divan analyses)14 divans are examined crazy! The servants of the mosque gave it a draft (of sher- and their contents classified according to subject mat- bet) and chained it up! (See appendix [11], below. Sub- ter extracted from individual couplets, without analy- seqent bracketed numbers following translated couplets sis of the couplets themselves. Instead, a few couplets also refer to Turkish transcriptions in the appendix.) are used as examples of both the subjects selected for classification and the literary arts they demonstrate. As is well known, in the Ottoman period mosques In this study, I intend to adopt a different approach, were lit by oil lamps hanging from long chains. In which I will apply broadly to several divans. I think of this couplet, the oil lamp in the mosque is likened to Ottoman poetry as resembling painting—the work of a lover driven mad by love. Traditionally, people with Salvador Dali, for example—in which one may see sev- violent mental disease were wrapped in heavy chains, eral different layers of meaning each time one looks. which were thought to both calm and restrain them. My method will be to examine both the external refer- The oil is likened to a medicinal draft used to treat the ents and the internal, artistic elements of the poetry at excessive secretion of black bile, one of the humors the same time, without privileging one over the other. of premodern physiology and the source of melan- For example, when the poet speaks of the beloved’s cholia (sevda), which was thought to cause madness, tall body, he (or she) will use one or another figure especially in the spring.16 The poet in effect is saying, of comparison (simile, metaphor, metonymy). Where “The beloved is as beautiful as springtime, and that the body is compared to an architectural object—say, beauty has made the mosque’s oil lamp burn madly, a tall, slender minaret—I will attend not only to what just as a lover burns, crazed by springtime melancholy. this comparison says about the physical characteristics So the mosque attendants bind the lamp with chains of the minaret (and the beloved) but also to how the the way one treats crazy people.” Thus, the poet uses artistry of the comparison itself makes the object and both simile (te×bih) and metaphor (istiare) to describe the person meaningful in a new way in order to rep- details of the decoration of a mosque interior. resent a more general societal view. I will do this in Conversely, one could argue that Ottoman archi- the context of the work of several poets. tects, belonging to the same cultural and material In my previous work I implemented this methodology world, would read poets’ descriptions of various build- in a detailed analysis of the of Zati and argued ings and derive inspiration from these descriptions. that Ottoman poetry reflected both the artistic and For example, Baki, who is one of the eminent poets the material life of society.15 In other words, every of the sixteenth century, may have inspired the great