ABSTRACT

Oral literature emerged when human beings started to speak, and because it stems from the grief, joy, love, culture, lifestyle and traditions of a nation, its words have significant meaning and power. Storytellers influence people using this power in their narratives. The cultural heritage of societies in the forms of tales, proverbs, epics, folk songs, dirges, mani (anonymous, rhythmic quatrains or short poems with seven lines sung to express specific feelings such as love, longing, homesickness, etc., in Turkish literature) are considered treasures by the generations that inherit them. While conveying these valuable information sources, storytellers contribute to the establishment of friendly and warm relationships. Human beings are influenced by the events around them throughout their lives and express them and their consequences in different ways. The thing that affects individuals and societies the most is, perhaps, human beings’ sense of helplessness in the face of death. Therefore, people have felt the need for dirges, poems full of intense emotions that describe dead people’s benevolence, bravery, valor or the grief and longing people feel for them. Although there is certainty and determination in dirges, which are products of oral literature, they often lack logical order because they emphasize emotions, and listeners’ emotional states, ages, education and gender shape their perspectives. Dirges, in addition, have traces of other literary products such as folk songs, epics, poetry and theatre. There is a diversity of subjects in dirges; however, their main theme is death. Since life and death are always interrelated, stories and laments are like inseparable parts of humans. This study will discuss storytellers and dirges in Turkish and Comorian oral literature.

Keywords: Turkish, comor, oral literature, storytellers, elegy