Abstract
TAHIR OLGUN’S POETIC WESTERN LITERATURE HISTORY
Tahir Olgun is one of the important and multifaceted figures of the Turkish literature. Among his works which he penned in different types are also poetic literature histories. One of these is the Western literature history entitled ‘A Poetic Diary on Western Literature History until the Half of the 19th Century, which he wrote in 1937 but not published. This work, as far as we know, is the first and only poetic history written about Western literature history in Turkish. The poetic or prosaic works, including this poetic one, penned by Tahir Olgun in the field of literature history are based on his lecture notes which he prepared while he taught literature. For this reason, there is a didactic approach in the work. Giving general knowledge about leading European countries’ literatures and important literary figures after a short introduction to the Ancient Greek and Latin literatures, the author evaluated these periods and artists under such headings as poem, prose, history, novel and comedy by starting from the 13th century and also opened up separate headings for some literary movements. Tahir Olgun not actually specialized in the Western languages and literatures made plenty of use of the Western literature histories written or translated in his period as well as gave place to his own interpretations while preparing this work.
Keywords
Tahir Olgun, Western literature, poetic history.