Literary Tale Theory Throug The Works of Oguz Tansel

Abstract

Oguz Tansel is not only one of the genuine Turkish poets, but also a master of fairy tales. The fairy tales he listened and collected from the villagers during his fieldwork were published and presented to the readers in five books entitled “Six Siblings”, “Seven Dews, “Three Girls”, “Blue Bride” and “Al’lı and Fırfırı”. A total of forty-three fairy tale texts were published in Tansel’s books. Forty-one of Tansel’s stories are rewritten or literarily processed tales. These texts were created considering the traditional folk features. In this respect, the first aim of the study is to determine what principles Tansel was using to create these stories. Two tales in Tansel’s work stand apart. These tales are “The Shepherd and the Bey’s Daughter” and “The Talking Fish and the Lonely Girl”. These two tales were written by Tansel himself, but they are based on the fairy tale tradition. “The Shepherd and the Bey’s Daughter” and “Talking Fish and the Lonely Girl” do not follow the tradition of Turkish folktales, they are completely new tales not only from the point of view of their subjects, but also from the point of view of their contents, involving unique works of the folklore world and original aesthetic ideas. It is possible to say that both tales are written as literary works in the true sense. Based on the characteristics of Tansel’s works, this article examines the relationship between folklore and literature. In the analysis of the fairy tales, the literary fairy tale theory of Russian literary scholars was used. Therefore, the second purpose of the paper is to analyze the literary context of these two unique stories, and to determine what methods Tansel was using to create them. Thus, it is revealed that they are completely new tales not only from the point of view of their subjects, but also from the point of view of their contents, involving unique works of the folklore world and original aesthetic ideas.