Begging and Beggary in the Context of Literary Sociology: Hayattan Sayfalar and Miskinler Tekkesi

Abstract

Literature and sociology are two distinct but interrelated disciplines that share many similarities in their quest to comprehend and explain human beings and society. Literary sociology is a branch of literary research that examines the relationships between social conditions and literary works. One of the subjects in novels reflecting social life is begging and beggary, an age-old social practice that exhibits comparable traits in all societies with few exceptions and that has always existed despite increasing or diminishing over time in response to state actions, changes in economic situations, and other factors. This study aims to show how authors deal with the issue of begging as a social reality. In order to better grasp the issue of begging, this article discusses the sociological, historical, and religious contexts before focusing on the works of two novelists who made strong social observations by having begging be the main focus of their works. The first one is Huseyin Rahmi Gurprnar's (1919) Hayattan Sayfalar [Pages from Life], penned in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, and the second one is Resat Nuri Guntekin's (1946) Miskinler Tekkesi [Lodge of the Lazy]. This study analyzes aspects such as the typology of beggars, places where they beg, and the public perception of beggars in both novels by drawing on the insights of literary sociology.