Abstract
FROM ONE OF THE FIRST WORKS WRITTEN IN ANATOLIA: THE MESNEVİ, NAMED KISSA-YI YUSUF, BY AKSARAYLI MAHMUD
Yusuf u Zeliha` story is one of the widely read and liked subjects of Turkish literature. Therefore it has been written since 13th century to this day mostly in verse and rewritten tens of times.
In this article, the mesnevi called Kıssa-yı Yusuf, which is recorded in the number 21 in retired instructor Rasim Deniz’s private library, is introduced. On first page of the Mesnevi, author’s name was given Aksarayli Mahmud. We consider that this is the person, Mahmud-ı Aksarayî, who wrote a history book in Persian, 1323, named Müsâmeretü’l-Ahbâr. Arabian and Persian poems in Müsâmeretü’l-Ahbâr shows that at the same time Aksarayî was a poet.
This written work is a journal. The book is highly worn off. Being among the 25b-80b pages of this journal the mesnevi’s entire name is Dâsitân-ı Kıssa-yı Yûsuf aleyhi’s-selâm. Consisting of 55 foils this mesnevi’s one or two pages from the last pages are missing. There are 1585 couplets in the work. In the mesnevi there are 15 odes in various lengths. Tittles of the mesnevi are Persian. The work was written in `fāʿilātün fāʿilātün fāʿilün` rhythm. On the copy we have there are rhythm errors in many of the odes. There could not been any copy of the work determined till this day. Since the last page is torn there is not any recording available about who copied and where it was copied.
According to resources, Aksarayî was born in the first half of the 13th century and died in 1332-1333. Both historical datum and the language of the work show that it was written in the second half of 13th century. According to these determinations Kıssa-yı Yûsuf is one of the first works of Old Anatolian Turkish. However the only copy that we could determine belongs to last periods. For this reason there are not many archaic features reflected to the text totally.
In our study this important work is introduced to science world, sample transcribed texts and facsimiles are given.
Keywords
Old Anatolian Turkish, Aksaraylı Mahmud, Kıssa-yı Yusuf
