Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology (Dec 2023)
POETICS OF AZERBAIJANI LOVE DASTANS
Abstract
The article aims to study the peculiarities of the content and structure of the love dastan genre as a product of the artistic thinking of the Azerbaijani people, to determine its poetic originality as well as the impact on the development of Azerbaijani literature and spiritual values of the next generations. The article traces the causes and origins of the similarities and differences between the ancient Turkic epic as a product of folk poetry and the subsequent medieval classical love epics created by Ashuga poets. In order to achieve the goal, historical-literary, cultural-historical, comparative, and hermeneutic research methods were used. Poetological originality of love dastans is conditioned by cultural-historical and literary aspects. On the one hand, love dastans contain the ancient culture of composing epics, which is characteristic of the Turks, and on the other hand, they combine features of the artistic outlook specific to medieval Sufism. Thus, the features of Turkic folklore and Sufi consciousness are synthesized in the Azerbaijani love dastans, which is reflected in the level of structure and content specificity of the love epic. In contrast to the works of the heroic epic, which often consisted of separate songs and legends united by a single plot line in a complete work (“Keroglu”, “Kitabi-Dede Gorgud”, etc.), the structure of love dastan tends to the structure of fairy tale genre, where the original plot is built into a universal structure. Love dastans are mainly characterized by a five-level structure, which includes the introductory part (ustadname) and the main one, where the following stages are distinguished: the wonderful birth of the hero, the stage of obtaining “buta”, the stage of overcoming obstacles, and the stage of winning in competitions. The specificity of the content of love dastans is determined by the dominance of the love theme, the understanding of the problems of morality, family values, cognition and mentoring, and a special type of hero – a young man with a pure heart, worthy of receiving a higher gift, which contributes to the spiritual growth of the character and success in achieving the goal (conquest of the beloved). It should be noted that unlike the heroic epic, which focuses on patriotic issues, social values, the main of which is devotion to the Motherland and its people, in love dastans the theme of individual love is understood in the context of the general national values of the Azerbaijani people. In this regard, love dastan as a work of folklore already has the features of an author’s literary work, marking the stage of transition from traditionalist to individual creative poetics.
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