The Takbeyt Genre in the Azerbaijani Turkish Literature of the 17th Century

As a result of researches conducted in the Institute of Manuscripts named after Mahammad Fizuli of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences and in various libraries of the world, it has been found that a number of poems of the Azerbaijani poets of the 17th century were written in the takbeyt genre. The poets such as Saib Tabrizi, Vahid Gazvini, Majzub Tabrizi, Safigulu bey Safi, Murtazagulu Sultan Shamlu, Tasir Tabrizi brilliantly expressed their lyrical feelings, social and philosophical thoughts in these verses consisting of only two hemistiches – one beyt. As it is known, the beyt is a main unit of the poetical speech consisting of two hemistiches in the Oriental literature, including the Azerbaijani one. The first hemistich is called “sadr”, the second one is “ajuz”. For converging on one beyt, both of two hemistiches must be in the same metre. The beyt expressing one idea in the classical Azerbaijani poetry is considered equal to the poem in the European poetry (6, p.89). Even in the old Oriental books, the beyt was used in the same meaning with the word “poem”. In the classical literature the takbeyts are a separate genre dividing into two parts for their forms: the takbeyts calling “muqaffa”, “musarra” or “matla” of which two hemistiches are rhymed; the takbeyts calling “mufrad” or “fard” of which hemistiches are not rhymed. In the Azerbaijani literature of the 17th century were used not only the classical genres written in Aruz metre such as ghazal, qasida, mulamma, murabbeh, mukhammas, musaddas, tarjibband, tarkibband, masnavi, saqinameh, rubai, qitah, but also the takbeyt genre.