In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Amasya became one of the important centres of Ottoman poetry through the literary circle that formed around the princely court. Many of the princes who governed the province wrote poetry and received poets and scholars in their assemblies; Bayezid II wrote as Adlî, Prince Korkut as Harîmî and Prince Mustafa as Muhlisî. Mihrî Hatun, one of the earliest known women poets to leave a divan, was a native of Amasya. The city's poetic tradition continued in later centuries, and poems describing Amasya were still being written in the early twentieth century.
The Literature section presents this inheritance through the poems themselves. Each poem is given in its original text from a reliable edition, followed by a couplet-by-couplet rendering and a literary and historical commentary on its form, metre, figures of speech and, where known, the occasion of its composition. The editions and studies used are listed in the bibliography at the end of each article.
The section has four subdivisions. Mihrî Hatun presents the poems of her divan one by one. Adlî (Bayezid II) contains poems from the divan of the sultan who governed Amasya for many years as a prince. Poems on Amasya collects verse about the city, from Hızrî and Gelibolulu Âlî to Abdurrahman Kâmil and Hüseyin Hüsameddin. Divan Poets of Amasya examines the literary personalities and works of poets who were born in the city or wrote at its princely courts, among them Münîrî, Tâcî Bey and Tâcîzâde Sa'dî Çelebi.
