FOLKLORIC ELEMENTS IN İSKENDER PALA’S NOVEL ŞAH VE SULTAN

Abstract

Folklore, which has been well-nourished by traditions throughout history, has incorporated oral tradition elements for centuries. Folk culture, an endless treasure, has excited the attention of quite a few researchers and writers in all periods. Those elements of folk culture have not been in existence with only a single form but survived within various genres from cradle to grave throughout all phases of life. Although İskender Pala is known to be the man who has got people love divan literature, he synthesizes sufi notions, folklore, history and geographical studies in a harmony and succeeds in narrating them to readers fluently. This way the work intrigues readers and this helps a multidirectional improvement for the work itself. It is likely that readers learn about the cultural elements of previous periods unwittingly. In our study we will try to lay the folkloric elements (vows, dreams, mourning, prayer-curse, folk medicine …) bare in İskender Palas’s historical novel Şah ve Sultan. By this means, we aim to reveal how and in what way folkloric elements throughout historical process have been transferred by a literary genre, novel.