Beauty and Love
Beauty and Love
Seyh Galip
The girl Beauty and the boy Love are betrothed to each other as children. But Beauty violates the custom of the tribe by falling in love with him, and Love must undergo the trials of a journey to the Land of the Heart to prove himself worthy – a journey to the realisation of both his and Beauty’s true nature.
The Turkish verse romance ‘Beauty and Love’, written in 1783 by Seyh Galip, head of an Istanbul centre of Mevlana Rumi’s order of the whirling dervishes, is an innovative interpretation of the Islamic love tale as a story of the action of God’s qualities in the world. With its stunning imagery, fast-moving plot, and nonchalant, erudite humor, it is widely known as the greatest work of Ottoman literature.
