ANADOLU TÜRKMEN AĞITLARININ YAPISI
THE STRUCTURE OF ANATOLIAN TURKMEN ELEGIES

Summary/Abstract: On a verbal level, an elegy can be regarded as the narrative form of the death process. Elegies transmit the news of death, depict manner of death and convey the guidelines for re-ordering the lives of those left behind and dissolving the ambiguity following death. They describe the emotional responses to death such as pain, sorrow, anger and despair. However, the structure of an elegy cannot be limited to its verbal layout as the elegy is a performative poetic form. In the performances of elegies, the tears, meanings, tremors, accompanying the tune, and the responses of people to the transformative capacity of nature materialise through human voice and gestures, and they are transferred onto a cultural level. In order to interpret the characteristics of this poetic form, the melody of an elegy, the physical acts of its performer and the audience should be evaluated together. In this study, the elegy is addressed as a performative poetic form and the characteristics of Anatolian Turkmen elegies are discussed. Following a structuralist approach, elegies are analysed on thematic, melodic and dramatic levels. As a conclusion, it is established that Turkmen elegies follow some consistent and continuous patterns. The function of the findings in the organisation of Anatolian Turkmenian society is discussed. The elegies are types of rites-of-passage poems which guide the mourning communities from turmoil to order; therefore, elegies mostly deal with matters of life preceding and following death, rather than the death itself.

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