ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the Italian and English translations of Yunus Emre’s Gel Gör Beni Işk Neyledi, a hymn that holds a significant place in Turkish Tasawwuf literature for two reasons. First, the poet’s views and poems have traveled across centuries, reaching a universal level, and have been welcomed with interest not only in the Turkish cultural and literary canon but also in other cultures. Second, the Italian and English translations of the hymn have not been examined within the framework of contemporary translation theories. This study takes the Turkish poem derived from the book Yunus Emre Divanı prepared by Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı,as its source text. The poem was translated into Italian by Turcologist Alessio Bombaci, who conducted essential studies on Turkish culture and literature, and into English by Kathleen R. F. Burrill. The Italian translation was taken from Bombaci’s work La Letteratura Turca, while the English translation was taken from Burrill’s The Literature of the Turks. Bombaci’s work is the first historical account of Turkish literature written and published in a Western language.Katharina Reiß’s content-oriented model and Mick Short’s stylistic analysis were used as the methods of analysis. In the study, the Turkish poem, Bombaci’s Italian translation, and Burrill’s English translation were designated as ST (KM), TT-1 (EM-1), and TT-2 (EM-2), respectively. Although the source text’s emotional intensity and Tasawwuf meanings were partially reflected in the target texts, the study observed that the cultural context and deep Tasawwuf references were inadequately transferred to the target culture.