Cenap Şahabettin

Turkish writer (–)

Cenâb Şehâbeddîn (born 21 March , Bitola^[1] - 12 February , Istanbul), was a Turkish poet and writer. He was one of the leading representatives of Servet-i Fünûn literature.^[2]

Biography[edit]

He was born on March 21, , in Bitola. His father Osman Şahabeddin^[1] died in the Russo-Turkish War (–). After the death of his father, he moved to Istanbul with his family when he was about six years old.^[3]

Education[edit]

He attended primary school at Mekteb-i Feyziyye in Tophane. Then he entered Eyüp Military High School. After the collapse of this school, he transferred to Gülhane Military Medical Academy and graduated from here in Then he entered Medical Academy, after studying for two years, he was accepted to the fifth year of Military Medical Academy. He graduated from school as a doctor captain in As he graduated with a good degree, he was sent to Paris by the state at the beginning of to specialize in the field of skin diseases. He stayed here for about four years.^[2]

Career[edit]

Cenap Şahabeddin is one of the main figure who has been accepted as an authority in various fields of literature, especially poetry, in his writing activities starting from and continuing until his death. He is among those who made the biggest innovations after Abdülhak Hâmid in Turkish poetry, which developed under the influence of Western literature after the Tanzimat.^[4]

Cenap Şahabeddin, who was born and raised in a family closely interested in literature, was under the influence of Muallim Naci and Şeyh Vasfi when he was fifteen or sixteen, and prepared and compiled their ghazals. His first poem was a ghazal and was published in the newspaper Saadet in , while he was still a student. Later, the verse form of nineteen poems he wrote became ghazal.^[5]

After this period, the new poems of Cenap Şahabeddin, who started to read the works of masters such as Abdülhak Hâmid Tarhan and Recâizâde Mahmud Ekrem, were published in the journals Gülşen, Sebat and İmdâdü'l-midâd, together with the newspaper Saadet. While he was still a medical student, he published 18 of his poems in a small book called "Tâmât" in ^[6]

Bibliography[edit]

References[edit]