The characteristics of the mert and the namert in the poems by mahtumkulu

Abstract

Poet and authors ascribe new meanings to words different from their denotative meanings. The words mert and namert have also been attributed additional meanings to their existent denotative meanings in our literature. Especially the poets in Turkmen area have highly made use of these words while comparing the good and evil person. Just like the prominent Turkmen poet Mahtumkulu, a lot of Turkmen poets, while revealing the qualities of a good man and the weaknesses of an evil person, have put their ideas into lines using the words brave mert and namert. Therefore, they introduced the ideal Turkmen characteristics with these words. In the present study, the characteristics of the mert and namert in the poetic world of Mahtumkulu are presented and the use of these words symbolically is displayed. © 2017, Ahmet Yesevi University. All rights reserved.