Reading Yunus Emre's Shathiyas in Terms of Stream of Consciousness

Abstract

Some of Yunus Emre's poems are built on images that do not reconcile directly with one another in terms of their meanings and are distant from rationality. Therefore, his poems are typically received by readers differently compared to other literary works. Such perceptions have been used as foundations for the development of various approaches to Yusuf Emre's poems, which are considered shathiya. These approaches are centered on the idea that in his poems, Yunus Emre has employed symbolic language with a definite rationale in mind. This approach suggests that the embedded phrases in his poems are based extensively on the tenets of Sufi philosophy. Consequently, it is presumed that the poems are constructed with allegories to the conceptual universe. However, the fact that all the commentaries on Yunus Emre's poems have been centered exclusively on the principles of Sufi philosophy has given rise to a one-sided consideration of his poetry. In addition, the similarities between the shathiya and stream-of-consciousness texts seem act as invitations for readers to interpret Yunus Emre's poems from the shathiya perspective. This study is an attempt at diverting readers from interpreting Yunus Emre's poems exclusively in the light of the shathiya-type poems and encouraging a shift in focus toward the possibility of reading these poems as works of stream-of-consciousness fiction. © 2021 Darulfunun Ilahiyat. All rights reserved.