Bahrü’l-Evzân

The surviving works of Lem‘î, who died in the mid-16th century, consist of treatises on aruz and rhyme, along with a small number of poems. The aruz treatise that is the subject of this study appears to be the most detailed Turkish work written in this field up to that time. In this work, which he presented to Şehzade Mehmed, Lem‘î discusses the definitions and explanations of aruz terminology in greater detail than his contemporaries and earlier authors. In this respect, the work holds a distinctive value within the literature on Turkish aruz. Despite its significance, however, the work has not been published to date.

The first section of this study, prepared to address this deficiency, discusses the aruz meter and works on aruz written before Lem‘î Çelebi’s treatise. The second section examines the life of Lem‘î Çelebi in detail on the basis of the available sources, records his surviving poems, and discusses his treatise on rhyme. The third section examines Bahrü’l-Evzân. Here, the contents of the work are discussed, along with the extent to which the meters mentioned in works of this kind on aruz correspond to the meters actually used in practice. The fourth section presents the text of the work. A facsimile of the copy registered as no. 310 in the Library of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums, which was used as the basis for the text, is also included at the end of the book.