Style in the divans of Âdile Sultan and Tevhîde Hanım

Abstract

The subject of this thesis is to compare two female divan poets who are Âdile Sultan and Tevhîde Hanım lived in the nineteenth century. In addition to being female poets lived in the same century, being able to write enough poems to form a divan and writing poems in sufist style because of being member of a religious order are the common points that make it possible to compare them in a thesis. Even though they had a lot in common, they lived in different social environments. Âdile Sultan, who was the daughter of Sultan Mahmut II, lived in the center of the Empire, the Ottoman Palace. On the other hand, Tevhîde Hanım who came from an ordinary family, the daughter of Limoncuzâde Fehim Efendi, lived in Manisa Province. Although their divans do not possess the high aesthetic and literary values, they have been chosen for this thesis due to their battle of survival in a male dominant culture and crossing the lines of this cultural discourse. Also they reflect the different aspects of their time as a result of coming from different social environments, which makes the thesis become enriched. In this thesis the differences of discourse of the poems of Âdile Sultan and Tevhîde Hanım from the discourse of the literary tradition are brought up.