Studies in Turkey on the epithets and analysis of a poem of Koroglu

Abstract

The elements used in traditional oral works for depicting the hero who needs to have an aesthetic feature or the object of which color, size and beauty or ugliness need to be depicted are called epithets. Epitet is one of the main aspects of the "Oral-Formulaic Hypothesis" which was founded by Milman Parry and was further developed by his pupil Albert B. Lord. This hypothesis occured during the studies which were done to better understand how the epics of Homeros (The Iliad and The Odyssey), also known as the Homer problem, were created. In this study, the focus is on the limited researches of the epithets done in Turkey and an analysis over the epitets which take place in one of the poems called "Bolu Beyi Kolu" in the stories of Koroglu. In this poem which is made out of eight verses and he wrote during his captivity, Koroglu mentions, in order, eight of his loyal men of whom he expects to come and save him and some of these eight men's aspects by using depicting epithets. We made use of the equavalent stories in the West in all of which Koroglu is the main charecter with minor changes in plot while analysing to see whether there are, in the analysed poem, any equavalents of the "Kelesler" (the fellow men of Koroglu) and the epithets used to depict them in other Koroglu stories. In this study, though, we set off with a poem, we also tried to follow the traces of the epithets used to depict the heroes in texts, too.