Navai’s Lyrics: A New Stage of Eastern Literature

Bakhodir Kholikov

Alisher Navai Tashkent State University of the Uzbek Language and Literature, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Keywords: Lyrics, Poetics, Genre, Devon, Composition.

Abstract: This article discusses Alisher Navoi's lyricism, the poetic arts used in it, and the rich experience of Turkish

poetry, as well as the innovations it brings in content and form. Also, the general and specific aspects of lyrics

by Navai, the founder of Turkish classical poetry, poetic devices, and the poetics of the divans of the poet are

discussed in the article. The poetic devices that existed in Turkish poetry before Navai and the poetic devices

that entered the literary arena through Navai’s lyrics are analyzed separately. Navai’s lyrics are analyzed not

only from the point of view of the breadth of the topic or its ideological perfection, but also in terms of

originality of expression, demonstrating that the idea has a vital root. The development of classic lyrical genres

and the role of Alisher Navai are also covered in detail. In particular, the fact that Alisher Navai used about

100 poetic devices and 16 lyrical genres in his divans is evidence of the wide scope of his poetic world.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nizamiddin Mir Alisher Navoi is an artist of words

who created the spiritual image of the Turkic peoples

with his timeless works and his unique geniusness in

the world history. The great poet and thinker Alisher

Navoi created his immortal works in his native

language, earning world's cultural treasures and

spreading his fame worldwide. Alisher Navoi, with

his great creativity, literary and scientific works and

beautiful human qualities, prevailed over all politics,

subjugated the supreme judge - Time - to his will,

gifted the world the Power of Words, the supreme

world miracle, and its beautiful expression in Uzbek.

They are the undeniable truths. Therefore, the

children of mankind, who feel a constant need for

spiritual inspiration, try to enjoy more of the life

wisdom embodied in Navoi’s immortal lines. The

study, research and interpretation of this great

creation began during the lifetime of Navoi, and

during the past five centuries. Many scholars and

artists engaged in the art of words. They have studied

Navoi’s legacy in various forms.

Navai's lyrics are not only rich in their ideological

depth and breadth of themes, but also in their elevated

literary qualities, which express the originality of

pure ideas. Alishir Navai mastered not only learning

of rich experience of Arabic, Persian and Turkic

Corresponding author

poetry, but also, he raised the most leading aspects of

the existed traditions to a higher level. Importantly,

he enriched literary treasure of Eastern poetry with

beautiful masterpieces. Navai’s lyric poems are an

example of harmonized ideas of humanist thinker and

the skills of a talented artist. Therefore, the

characterization of Abdurahman Jami and Mirza

Babur is a fair assessment, devoid of any

exaggeration.

In the history of our national classical poetry, the

elevation of lyrical genres to a new level is

undoubtedly connected with the work of Alisher

Navoi. At the time when Navoi started his creative

career, in Uzbek literature, genres such as qasidah,

ghazal, masnavi, tuyuq, and fard of the lyrical type

were developing as poetic forms, and genres such as

qit’a, rubai, musamman, tarkibband, tarji’band were

in the stage of formation.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

One of the main features of Navai’s lyrics lies in the

unique expression of the core idea, which is the

essence of a poem. And this, in its turn, is seen in

choosing the appropriate genre for each idea and in

determining the format of the main goal’s entire

expression.

Kholikov, B.

Navai’s Lyrics: A New Stage of Eastern Literature.

DOI: 10.5220/0012991800003882

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR-2 2023), pages 1673-1676

ISBN: 978-989-758-723-8

1673

Even the main part consists of 7, 9, 11 bait poems

among Navai’s ghazals, each of them was chosen

according to meaning [Oʻzbek adabiyoti tarixi.

(1977):35]. For instance, a smaller metric unit was

chosen for the expression of a romantic theme, big

sized ghazals were chosen for the expression of

philosophical and social themes.

The most of the qit’ahs, which play an important

role in the poet’s divan, are two baits and one can

meet even the qit’ahs the content of which is equal to

ghazal size (7-11 baits). Thus, Navai approaches to

the problem of a poem’s size in an creative way and

wrote according to the general specific regulatory

requirements for content and poetic genres. Navai’s

innovation in the composition of a lyric poem and his

tremendous service in the development of lyrics are

of great importance.

First of all, it should be noted that Navai’s

wonderful idea that each poem should be an integral

work with a logical sequence from beginning to the

end in proportion both to content and form, was stated

about ghazals, but it applies to all lyrical genres. If

one addresses to any genre of the poet’s divan he can

see bright expression of his aesthetic principles in

them. Secondly, Navai’s meaningful idea is of

general character, and while writing a poem an idea

may appear in different aspects according to the

author’s own style and content [Boltaboyev H.

(2004):67]. As an example one can see in Navai’s

poems, i.e. in ghazals. It is interesting that the

peculiarities of Navai’s ghazals and bright examples

of his innovations attracted even his contemporaries

and had a positive impact on their work. For instance,

Zakhiriddin Mukhammad Babur, a true fan and

researcher of Navai’s works, in his “Baburnama”

gave a general remark on the poet’s literary heritage

and in his work about aruz (a kind of Turkic poetic

rhythm), he highlighted Navai’s poetic skills. Some

of Navai’s ghazals are poetic depictions of the lyrical

hero’s experiences.

Such ghazals which begin with misras (verses) as

“Kecha kelgumdur debon ul sarvi gulro‘ kelmadi”

(Having shown her will to come, my mistress that

flower failed to come.), “Havo xush erdiyu ollimda

bir sadah mayi nob” (The weather was nice and I had

a glass of soft wine), from the early divan, are the

evidence that this feature was developed from early

days of writing ghazals by the poet [Mallayev N.M.

(1976):73]. The features of such styles as the integrity

and poetic desciption in Navai’s ghazals are also

reflected in his landscape poems. However, such

poems do not show a specific plot, but the poet uses a

consistent description of the natural landscape as a

specific background for the expression of his

intentions, and the consistency of purpose is also

reflected in the poetic style.

It is known that one of the factors that ensures the

integrity and logical consistency of Navai’s ghazals is

the fact that each ghazal is based on a specific idea,

detail or character (in the broadest sense) and all the

possibilities of the image mobilization for a clear and

consistent expression.

The aim is to clarify the idea and ensure

consistency in the imagery to perfect the composition

and maintain the natural flow within the poem. The

occurrence of this feature is manifested in different

ways in each poem, depending on the nature of the

object of depiction (in one poem a consistent

description of the features associated with a single

subject, in another a description of related events in

order to show the essence of an event, etc.).

Another important aspect of Navoi’s ghazals is

that life highlighting took an important position in

them. In this regard, it is clearly seen that many of the

poet’s ghazals were created on the basis of real life

impressions. The ghazals of this kind are directly

related to certain periods of the poet’s life and are

distinguished by the uniqueness of the style, the

vitality and seriousness of the ideological pathos. In

such ghazals, the personality of the poet is reflected

very brightly. Indeed, the natural uniqueness of

poetry is explained by the extent to which the

personality of the creator is manifested in it.

It should be noted that while some of the poetic

methods in Navai’s divan existed in pre-Navai Uzbek

lyric poetry, some were primitive, some were not

existed, and is accounted to be a novelty for Uzbek

poetry. We can observe a similar scene in poetic

characters and expressions.

It is known that all genres were not formed in pre-

Navai Uzbek lyrics period. Ghazal (love lyric),

qasidah (ode), masnavi (rhymed couplet) and tuyugh

(a Turkic quatrain) had their own forms. Common

conclusion is that in the matter of genres Navai’s

attitude towards an existing form is of absilutely

creative and on some matters is critical (written in the

prologue of Badoye ul-Bidoya) [Alisher Navoiy.

(1997):30]. He introduced innovations into the

structure of the work, retaining the most important of

the general or basic features of the structure of the

genre - those that do not hinder the artistic

development of the idea. As a result the rules of

existed genres let Navai go beyond the boundaries.

That is why Navai created new and perfect models of

such genres as ghazal and soqiynama (a lyrical genre

in the form of a masnavi in Eastern classical

literature). Also, some genres of early Uzbek

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literature had been developed and reached internal

perfection.

Before Alisher Navoi, famous poets such as

Atoyi, Gadoyi, Sakkokiy, Lutfiy, Khafiz Khorezmi

wrote in the field of Turkish poetry, most of them are

mentioned by Navoi in his works. Atoyi’s divan

consisted only of poems in the genre of ghazals, while

the surviving copies of Sakkoki’s divan contained

about 40 ghazals and 11 (according to some reports,

13) qasidahs. Gadoyi and Lutfiy’s divans are

characterized by a wide range of lyrical genres. If

Gadoyi’s divan includes ghazal genre along with

mustazad, qasidah and qit’a genres, Lutfiy’s divan

includes genres such as ghazal and qasidah, tuyuq and

fard besides ghazal and qit’a. In Khafiz Khorezmi’s

divan we can see a total of 9 genres of the lyrical type:

qasidah, ghazal, mustazod, mukhammas, tarkibband,

tarji’band, marsiya (oda), qit’a, rubai.

3 DISCUSSIONS

Thus, Navai’s lyrics represent a completely new and

elevated stage in the history of Eastern lyric poetry

(even when considered purely in terms of genres).

Consequently, it is not enough to rely solely on the

legacy of Hafiz or a few Arab and Persian poets when

making general judgments about medieval Eastern

literature. It is necessary to consider, first of all,

Navai’s lyrics, a great achievement of Eastern poetry

at the moment, neither limiting the term’s meaning

nor the highest peak of Turkic poetry.

Navoi set out with the goal of perfecting Turkish

poetry across genres and successfully incorporated 16

genres in his divans. The introduction of some genres

into Turkish literature is connected with Alisher

Navoi, while the wide development of some genres is

connected with the poet’s literary activity.

Alisher Navoi’s works belong to the period when

poetic rules (canon) prevailed in Eastern, especially

Arabic and Persian, literature. At this point, the

science of poetics mainly covered three issues, each

of which was considered an independent science: the

science of aruz, the science of rhyme, and the science

of poetry. In the poetics of genres, a word was spoken

in the form of an appendix to the third part.

A number of categories that are specifically

studied as indicators of literariness in the literary

studies of the new period (although most of them are

present in the literature of the East and even at a high

level) are not found within this trinity of traditional

poetics. Among these are a number of issues such as

psychology, causality - determinism, depiction of

nature (landscape), drama, composition, space and

time.

The literary value of Navai’s lyrics and the facets

of the poet’s skills are more clearly manifested in the

framework of their descriptive means and usage.

About 120 poetic devices are described in the

work “Badoye us-sanoye” (Literary Devices), by

Ataullah Khusayni, which is considered a literary

phenomenon in the poetics of the Eastern people.

There are more than a hundred poetic devices in

Navai’s divans, which have become a consistent

branch of the poet’s literary system.

We have categorisedthe poetic devices used in

Navai’s lyrics into the following conditional groups,

considering their nature in relation to their function

within the poetic text:

1. Allegorical-symbolic image methods (allegory,

metaphor, baroati istikhlal, irony).

2. Comparative methods (such as tashbeh, talmeh,

laff and nashr).

3. Argument of the opinion (such as husni ta’lil,

tamsil, irsoli masal).

4. Exaggerated image methods (exaggeration

(tabligh, ighrakh, ghuluv), appeal).

5. Syntactic-stylistic methods (such as tarse, tardi

aks, murabba).

6. Devices related to the internal and external

states of the word (such as tajnis, iykhom, ishtiqaq,

qalb)

7. Contrast (tazod, the art of contrasting).

8. Devices related to classical rhyme (hajib, radd

ul-qafiya, rhyme with tajnis, zulqafiyatain, musajja,

tasmit).

We would like to emphasize the following point:

some of the poetic methods, used in Navai’s divans,

had been present before the poet in the Uzbek lyrics,

while others are completely new to classical lyrics,

and these new forms appeared through Navai’s lyrics.

4 CONCLUSION

Navoi’s lyrical legacy provides rich material for

special reflection on such issues. Indeed, these poetic

revolutions and concepts, although they bear relation

to European literary studies of the new era, are

specific categories for literary creativity in general,

and hold direct relevance to the work of Eastern

poetry and, in particular, its notable representatives

like Navoi. Therefore, studying these issues in the

context of Navoi’s lyrics serves, on the one hand, to

uncover new aspects of the poet’s literary skills and

innovation, and on the other hand, to identify Navoi’s

creative experiences, which are esteemed as the

Navai’s Lyrics: A New Stage of Eastern Literature

1675

zenith of medieval poetry. Ultimately, such studies

assist in exploring the universal laws of mankind's

thinking, transcending national and geographical

differences.

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