ON THE TRACK OF A WORD: REFLECTIONS ON THE WORD “LEVEND” IN CLASSICAL TURKISH POETRY B R KEL MEN N Z NDE: KLAS K TüRK R NDE “LEVEND” üZER NE BAZI Dü üNCELER

Poets of Classical Turkish literature are artists who make use of various meanings of words and create a unique world of metaphors. One of the words they use, “levend” has different meanings in Turkish, Persian, Persian-Turkish, Ottoman/Persian-English dictionaries and dictionaries of historical terms. It is known that levends, one of the important military groups of the Ottoman Empire, were also involved in some socially inappropriate behavior after a certain period. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the meanings of “levend” as used in poets, elements related to levends, negative aspects of them and the world of metaphors created around this group with selected examples. Klasik Türk edebiyat airleri, kelimelerin ok de i ik anlamlar ndan yararlanan, de i ik bir benzetme dünyas olu turan sanat lard r. Onlar n kulland klar kelimelerden biri olan “levend”, Türk e, Fars a, Fars a-Türk e, Osmanl ca/Fars a- ngilizce ve tarih terimleri s zlüklerinde farkl anlamlar bar nd rmaktad r. Osmanl Devleti’nin nemli asker gruplar ndan olan levendlerin, belli bir d nemden sonra toplumda olumsuz, uygun olmayan i ler de yapt klar bilinmektedir. Bu al mada “levend” kelimesinin anlamlar ndan hangilerinin iirlerde kullan ld , levendlerle ilgili unsurlar, onlarla ilgili olumsuzluklar ve bu grup etraf nda olu turulan benzetme dünyas se ilen rneklerle g sterilmeye al lm t r.