One of the first poets in Anatolia to have composed poetry in Turkish, Yunus
Emre (d. ca. 1320) had a profound impact on the development of Turkish as a
literary language and the flourishing of an Anatolian mystical tradition. His work
has indeed retained its ethical and aesthetic relevance to this day.
This volume brings together essays by some of the most well-known scholars
of Islamic mysticism and Turkish language and literature to shed light on the
poetry of Yunus from different perspectives. Andreas Tietze compares Yunus
Emre with the European mystic poets of his time. Annemarie Schimmel
evaluates the poet within the context of Islamic mysticism in general. İlhan
Başgöz examines Yunus Emre’s life and the evolution of his ideas based on
the evidence extracted from his poems. John R. Walsh explores Yunus Emre’s
poems in terms of their function as hymns, while Mehmet Kaplan analyzes the
metaphysical aspects of the poet’s work. Talât Sait Halman’s contribution
surveys the humanistic concepts in the poems composed by this great
Anatolian mystic. The book also offers a wide selection of Yunus Emre’s poems
translated into English.
