Divan poet (B. 1757,
Istanbul- D. January 3, 1799). His real name is Mehmet. He is known as Galib
Dede. He is the son of a poet and scholar Mevlevi dervish named Mustafa Resid
Effendi. He was born in a house around the Yenikapı Mevlevi House. He was grown
up in the Mevlevi circles, reading the works of Mevlana Celaleddin. He
considered his father as a mentor (someone that shows the path to God, the
truth) and learned Turkish and Persian from him. He has received language and
literature courses from Hoca Neşat Effendi. He worked as a civil servant at the
Ottoman Palace. He has written a lot of poems within these years, and compiled
his poems he wrote with Esad and Galip pseudonyms into a Divan (1780) when he was only twenty four. In 1782, as a response
of reading and praising the Hayrabad
mesnevi of poet Nabi in a gathering; he said that this work was not so
important and then he was invited to write a more superior one and he wrote his
famous mesnevi Hüsn ü Aşk in six
months. When he was around thirty years old, he visited Mevlana Lodge and Tomb
and started to live in Konya (1784); but he returned to Istanbul upon his
family’s request and completed his ordeal in Yenikapı Mevlevi House (1787).
After living for a while as secluded for a while in Sütlüce, he was appointed
as the sheikh of Galata Mevlevihane in 1791. After his appointment as a sheikh,
the decayed Galata Lodge was repaired by Sultan Selim The Third, who was known
with his close relations to Galib Dede and Mevlevi Order. As the Sultan has conducted
frequent visits to this place; a water-tank with fountain was built along with
a Sultan’s gathering place for their chats with Sheikh Galib. The poet has
eulogies for Selim the Third, historical essays about his activities and poems
written for Beyhan Sultan, daughter of Selim. This proximity between the
Ottoman palace and Galib Dede made some other groups jealous. Sheikh had two
sons named Ahmet and Mehmet, and a daughter named Zübeyde; and he became sick
(according to some rumors, tuberculosis) and dies when he was forty two years
old. A huge funeral ceremony was organized for the poet. His tomb is in the
garden of the old Mevlevi House, which was turned into Divan Literature Museum
on December 27, 1976.
Şeyh Galib is known as
the poet in Turkish Literature who had understood Fuzuli, Nabi and Nedim in its
best. We see strong traces of these poets in his poems. He has created a new
imaginary world adding to their language and form aspects and has achieved to
use a new language with the same Divan poetry material. Şeyh Galib has produced
the best examples of a way of expressing by delicate and distant connotations
named Sebk-i Hindi (Indian style);
and his poetry style was considered as rich in imagination, delicate in style,
sincere in feelings and colorful but hard-to-comprehend symbolic features.
Şeyh Galib is considered
as the last greatest poet of Divan Literature; and his work Hüsn ü Aşk is an allegorical work that explains the
challenges to reach the mystic love; and it still has importance until today
with its subject and writing technique. Hüsn ü Aşk is a mesnevi
written in “mef’ûlü mefâilün faûlün” prosody with more than 2000 verses. The
heroes of this mesnevi do not have bodies, they are not historical or epic
heroes; but they are directly Hüsün (beauty) and Love itself which has inclined
to this beauty. The tribe to which Hüsn and Aşk are members of is called Beni Muhabbet (sons of love) tribe; the
school to which they attend is named Mekteb-i
Edeb (school of literature) and the teacher who taught them lectures is
named Molla-yı Cünun (teacher who is
madly in love). Another important feature of this work in terms of language is
that it includes simple Turkish verses such as “Bir sürçen atın başı kesilmez”,
“Can vermek olur da dönmek olmaz” mottos.
Şeyh Galip notifies the greatest resource of his work by saying “I took the
mystery from Mesnevi / And if I stole I stole public good”.
The most famous of poems
in Galib’s Divan is a Naat-i Şerif which is said for Prophet
Mohammad. This poem was read in several religious gatherings and even in
mosques. The chapter of odes in Divan mainly consists of poems about love,
contemplation and mysticism. The classical poems of Divan poetry are said in a
way specific to poems. Besides the ones related with love of Mevlana, there is
another ode under the impact of Ali Şir Nevai, which reveals the poet’s
familiarity with Central Asian poetry. In the final part of Odes, there is a
elegy said for Esrar Dede, close friend of the poet.
Besides Divan and
Hüsn ü Aşk; poet also has two other works named Şerh-i Cezire-i
Mesnevi and Es-Sohbetü’s Safiyye. First one of those is the paraphrase of Yusuf Sineçak’s work named Cezire-i
Mesnevi which was arranged by choosing hundred verses from each volume of
Mevlana Celaledd,n’s Mesnevi. Second one is the paraphrasing of the work Er-Risaletü’l-Behiyye
by Trabzonlu Kusec Ahmed Dede. The work was written with the thought that God
can be reached via knowledge. Şeyh Galib has affected many poets such as Ziya
Paşa, Abdülhak Hamit, Keçecizade İzzet Molla, Yenişehirli Avni and Ahmet Haşim;
replies were written for his poems. Beşir Ayvazoğlu summarizes these effects as
follows in one of his books:
“The real Şeyh Galib fashion was started by Fecr-i Ati
poets, which is considered as an extension of Serveti- Fünün literature.
Köprülüzade Mehmed Fuad is an important representative of this group. In his
poem published at Mehasin, which is named Şeyh Galib, he honored the poem of
Hüsn ü Aşk. Tahsin Nahit from the same group has a poem named Bahar, which is
derived from the line ‘Şemîm-i gül
getürür bağa kârbân-ı bahâr’ of Galib.
“This interest which was
gathered around Şeyh Galib in the beginning of century has also affected Mehmed
Ziya Bey, who was called “person of memorial” as he was interested in
organizing memorials. The “Galib Dede Memorial” was organized in Galata Mevlevi
House on Teşrinievvel 13, 1328 (1912) with the support of Hak newspaper and
Süleyman Nazif, Recâîzade Mahmut Ekrem, Şahabeddin Süleyman and Köprülüzâde
Mehmed Fuad Bey have made speeches about the life and literature personality of
the poet. Besides, articles of Veled Celebi and Ahmed Hikmet in İlave-i Hak and
an article of Kopruluzade Mehmet Fuad in Servet-I Fünun were published about
Galib. (…)
“Mustafa Seyit Sütüven and Mahir Iz have sang a reply
to Galib’s “görmüşüz” ode; Rıfkı Melul Meriç has used the lines ‘Bir şu’lesi var ki şem’-i cânın / Fânûsuna
sığmaz âsmânın’ as epigraph in his poem named Aşk. Same lines were also used by
Atilla Ilhan as epigraph at the start of Şehnaz Faslı section of Yasak
Sevişmek. In the poetry of Asaf Halet Celebi, we do not see the direct impact
of Şeth Galib; but we should mention that he has a significant series of
articles published at Türk Yurdu journal about the poet’s life, works and
literature.
“”Behçet Necatigil has
built his poem named Ölü upon the image Ateş denizlerinde mumdan kayıklar’,
which he took from Hüsn ü Aşk. His poem named Kalp Kalesi carries the
atmosphere of Hüsn ü Aşk to our day. There are images in Kalp Kalesi such as
atım geç ateşi ve.. Hüsün’ which have clear traces of Galib; and we see an
obvious impact of Şeyh Galib on the poetry of Yavuz, where he takes the saying
of ‘Dayanır mı şişedir bu’ and re-says as ‘dayanır mı Hüsn ü Aşk bu’. Hilmi
Yavuz has suggested to use Galib’s Hoşça bak zatına’ instead of the widespread
usage of “Take care of yourself”.
“In Sezai Karakoç’s
Fecir Devleti, which gives his utopia, the master builder of the new
establishment is Şeyh Galib.” (Beşir Ayvazoğlu, Şeyh Galib Book)
“Galib Dede, while defining his pen at the process of
writing his story, he replaces it for the Mecnun who follows his “dream Leyla”
or for the “reed flute” which is inspired by Şems-i Tebrizi. And he
revolutionizes the literature by his work which is written through a pen
transformed into a reed flute that expresses the feeling of love which exists
in human being as a necessity of existence and which is revealed as a high
stimulant:
“Bu
resme koyup beyân-ı aşkı
Söyler bana dâsitân-ı aşkı” (Necmettin Turinay)
WORKS:
Divan (Bulak, 1836,
1937, Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, selections, 1971; Şeyh Galib Divanı prepared by
Muhsin Kalkışım, 1994), Hüsn ü Aşk (1887,1923, A. Gölpınarlı,
simplifying 1968, Orhan Okay ve Hüseyin Ayan tar., 1975), Şerh-i Cezire-i
Mesnevi (selections and annotations from Yusuf Sineçak’s mesnevi), Es-Sohbetü’s-Safiyye.
REFERENCE: Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı / Şeyh Galib (1953), Âsaf
Halet Çelebi / Eski Türk Şiirinde Reform: Galib Dede (Türk Yurdu, issue:
263-269, December 1956), Sedit Yüksel / Şeyh Galib / Eserlerinin Dil ve Sanat
Değeri (1963), Bursalı Mehmed Tahir / Osmanlı Müellifleri II (1972), Orhan Okay
/ Şeyh Galib-Hüsn ü Aşk (1975), Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar / 19. Asır Türk Edebiyatı
Tarihi (1976), Sezai Karakoç / Zamana Adanmış Sözler (1985), Hüsrev Hatemi /
Hoşça Bak Zatına (1989), Beşir Ayvazoğlu / Şeyh Galib Kitabı (author and ve
editor, 1995), Behçet Necatigil / Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü (ed. 18, 1999),
Şükran Kurdakul / Şairler ve Yazarlar Sözlüğü (exp.ed. 6, 1999), İhsan Işık /
Türkiye Yazarlar Ansiklopedisi, 2001, 2006, 2009) – Türkiye Edebiyatçılar ve
Kültür Adamları Ansiklopedisi (ed.2, 2009) – Ünlü Bilim Adamları (Türkiye
Ünlüleri Ansiklopedisi, vol. 2, 2013).
