Poet and writer (b.
1901, Ferecik / Alexandroupolis / Greece - d. 1964, İstanbul). His real name
was Süleyman Rıfkı Coşkunmeriç. He used the pen name Melûl in his poems. He
attended elementary school at Edirne Sultanisi, İstanbul High School and
Menbau’l İrfan Private High School. He entered Medical School in 1917 but gave
up in the fifth grade. He enrolled in the School for Advanced Commerce but,
again, left after two years and finally graduated from İstanbul University,
Faculty of Literature, Department of Turkish Language and Literature (1927).
He worked at Ankara
Ethnography Museum for a year and, beginning in 1928, he worked as a teacher of
literature at high schools in Ankara, Kütahya, Akşehir, Adana and İstanbul. He
also worked as chairman at the Turkish Historical Society’s İstanbul Region
Book Collection (1939-44).
He
gave lectures on the Ottoman language, literature and art history at İstanbul
University, Faculty of Literature, the Academy of Fine Arts and Ankara
University, Faculty of Theosophy. He was a member and worked as a Director at
the Conquest of İstanbul Association and the Islamic Sciences Institute. The
poems of Meriç, who attracted even greater fame with his quatrains, were
published in the reviews Servet-i Fünûn, Sebab, Düşünce, Yarın, Hayat and
Mihrab.
WORKS:
POETRY: İnkıraz
(Extinction 1928), Rubaiyyat-ı Melûl (Melancholy Rubais* 1951).
RESEARCH-STUDY:
Akşehir Türbe ve Mezarları (Tombs and Mausoleums in Akşehir, 1937), Türk
Tezyini Sanatları-Yazı Sanatı (Turkish Decorative Arts-The Art of
Calligraphy), Türk Nakış Sanatı Tarihi Araştırmaları (Research on the
History of Turkish Embroidery Arts, 1953), Türk Cilt Sanatı Tarihi
Araştırmaları (Research on the History of Turkish Book Binding Art, 1954), Beyazıd
Camii Mimarları, İkinci Sultan Beyazıd Zamanı Mimarları, Binaları ve
Sanatkârları (Architects of Beyazıd Mosque, Architects in the time of
Sultan Beyazıd II, Buildings and Artists, 1959), Edirne'nin Tarihi ve Mimarî
Eserleri Hakkında (On the History and Architectural Works of Edirne, 1963).
