Explanation of Evliya Çelebi Humor

Abstract

Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâme stands out as the most important work written in its
field during the Ottoman period. One of the main bases of a unique language and turn of
phrase in the traveller’s narrative is his humourist disposition. Drawing his inspiration
from the rich and prolific humour atmosphere of the period he lived in, Evliya Çelebi tells
several laughable incidents and stories using his humoristic disposition and his elegantfunny
perspective. When Seyahatname is considered, the first reason this great work has
been created is an ironical “slip of the tongue” that lies in its root. Signs of humour are
observed along the trip initiated by a humour-based incident. Different apparatuses or
devices are used underneath the humour seen through waggeries, jokes, epigrams and
funny stories. The first one of these devices is “Word Tricks”. These tongue twisters
in the form of paronomastic, rhyming, doubling apparatus that make one smile are
prolonged illustrations that go on for lines or “funny allegories” or are “fabrications” by
the traveller about the origin of a specific town’s name. The second is “Tecahülüarifane
jokes” used to narrate something in indirect ways pretending to ignore it. The last one is
a humoristic structure consisting of anti-norms, scurrilous narratives and the principles
of corporealness (representation of images related to eating, drinking, defecating and
sexual life), all of which can be coded as “Jokes of Grotesque Nature” and comprised by
the metaphor of “public’s laughter”.