YENİ TÜRK EDEBİYATI ARAŞTIRMALARI Modern Turkish Literature Researches (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
The mythical narratives which represent collective consciousness harbour variousimages. The myth of Icarus is one of them, shedding light on the images of flight and fall,light and darkness. In the story, the hero desires to escape the darkness of the labyrinthhe is confined in and to reach the sun with his wings. As these images have anontological root, they appear in different cultures’ literature even in different times. Thesimilar mythical elements are also embedded in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as aYoung Man in which Dedalus’s spiritual enlightenment or elevation is followed bydeflation. Likewise, in The Candle and the Moth (Şem’ü Pervane), which is one of theproducts of Eastern literature and is written by Feridüddin Attar as well, the candle andthe butterfly motif provides an insight into the image of light and darkness. In thisrespect, the myth of Icarus, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Candle and the Moth have shared images. On the other hand, these images function indifferent ways, as each text reflects different cultural codes. This study aims to compare and contrast different meanings of the images in the myth of Icarus, The Candle and the Moth and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, offering an insight into different cultural values. Keywords: Icarus, the Candle and the Moth, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,culture
Master's Thesis, 2020
James Joyce is widely known for his radically experimental sense of style. What makes his works so difficult and complicated is rooted in the fact that he is one of the most prominent figures of literary modernism. Marking his transition from realist to modernist literature, it was his first novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) where he started to challenge traditional norms of writing in both form and content. Moreover, among Joyce’s works, it was the first unabridged translation and the first novel translation into Turkish. Therefore, the discussion around Joyce’s introduction to the Turkish culture repertoire as a modernist writer was held around this particular work. This interdisciplinary research pursued a sociocultural approach to translation within the historical context by combining Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory. Firstly, genesis of the habituses of human agents were reviewed as the first Turkish translation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was initiated by the owner of De Yayınevi and Yeni Dergi, Memet Fuat, and done by Murat Belge in 1966, exactly fifty years after its publication. Secondly, the position of the literary field within the field of power was scrutinized. Accordingly, in the 1960s, there was a relatively free atmosphere in Turkey due to the new constitution and the rights and freedoms it provided. It was found out that the rise of the left during that period paved the way for the establishment of De Yayınevi and Yeni Dergi and then the radicalization of the left led to the closure of them. Thirdly, the structure of literary field itself was examined to demonstrate the general dynamics and tendencies and to contextualise De Yayınevi and Yeni Dergi in a wider frame. When the publishing activities and policies of them were scrutinized in the light of paratextual and extratextual materials, it was revealed that Memet Fuat put a specific emphasis on modernist works, whether indigenous or translated. Thus, they both addressed a special kind of audience with their mostly translated modernist content of which Joyce’s work was a part and operated with an intellectual mission rather than commercial motives. In this respect, Memet Fuat engaged in deliberate culture planning activities with a specific agenda that aspired to keep up the Turkish reader with the modern contemporary world. Finally, despite criticism and ostracism he received, by actively promoting modernist literature in a time when social realist literature dominated the literary field and offering new options to the Turkish culture repertoire by mainly publishing translated works in the 1960s, Memet Fuat emerged as a controversial agent of change.
Aziz Efendi'nin Muhayyelatı - Emrah Öztürk
Turkish Studies - Language and Literature, 2023
There has only been more than a handful of fantasy fiction written within Turkish literature. It is only recently within the last two decades that we see Turkish authors produce literary works within this genre. This paper investigates the journey of Muhayyelât-ı Ledünn-i İlahi [Phantasms from Divine Presence], written as early as 1797, by Aziz Effendi. The interesting aspect of this book is that the definition of its genre and its perception changed throughout the years. Despite the fact that Aziz Effendi wrote the Muhayyelât in 1797, the book was published in 1852, within the era of Tanzimat Reformation. Correspondingly, it did not impress the intellectuals and authors of that time due to its fantastic content. According to them the book was signifying an old folk tale tradition that must be left behind immediately. However, in the following century, the book acknowledged as an individualized folk tale compilation by scholars. Therefore, in the 21st Century, with the emergence of Turkish fantasy literature, Muhayyelât has been accepted as the inception point of this genre. This study will summary these different acknowledgments under the four centuries. Consequently, in the conclusion chapter, within the light of these four centuries, the relevant genre of the book will be reconsidered
The Ottoman Myth in Turkish Literature
Narrated Empires: Perceptions of Late Habsburg and Ottoman Multinationalism, 2021
This chapter discusses the genesis of the ‘Ottoman Myth’ in Turkish literature, focusing on a broad variety of retrospective narratives that are tied together by (post-)imperial melancholy. As a defining feature of the Ottoman Myth, melancholy results from the experience of losing a political, cultural, and symbolic order that is retrospectively and literarily remembered or imagined as Ottoman lifeworlds. ‘Empire’, or what is evoked as such, functions as a prism through which authors outline what is perceived as the ills of today, such as modernity, westernisation or nationalism. Melancholy is intrinsically connected to literary discussions about Turkish identity between East and West and links to broader questions about modernisation and progress. Through the analysis of literary texts written by Ahmet Midhat, Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, Peyami Safa, Halide Edib Adıvar, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak, and Sema Kaygusuz this chapter explores how the Ottoman Myth has evolved throughout the history of late Ottoman and (post)modern Turkish literature.
Daedalus and Icarus in Verbal and Visual Frames: A Comparative Reading of Bruegel, Auden and Ağıl
The myth of Daedalus and Icarus has been the subject of numerous literary texts as well as artworks in the Western tradition. The Turkish poet Nazmi Ağıl's two ekphrastic poems 'Bruegel: The Landscape as Icarus Falls' and 'Auden's Icarus' are retellings of the myth with reference to Ovid's Metamorphoses, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, and W. H. Auden's 'Musée des Beaux Arts'. If ekphrasis is the representation of a work of art in literature, then Ağıl's poems are re-representations of both verbal and visual frames by critiquing Auden's interpretation from the mouth of a storyteller Kamil in the former poem and Daedalus in the latter. Ağıl's aim in alluding to the Western sources is to highlight political issues in Turkey. This paper, then, argues how Ağıl's poems complicate the reading process by playing with verbal and visual frames.
The article discusses how Ottoman Sufis adhering to Melami mystic philosophies that follow İsmail Maşuki, and, other prominent Melamis, advocated for Self and individualism through poetry of Sehrengiz (şehrengiz) had become a subtext for urban practices bringing together diverse commoners of the Ottoman cities, especially of Istanbul in this article, in places defined as paradise gardens in metaphorical senses. Each metaphor designated as a paradise garden is actually a different fragment of the rich and diverse urban landscape of the city - whether it be the Hippodrome, courtyards of different mosques, mesires - public commons, a shop, a friend's house, or an actual private garden. Thus, walking and strolling through the city and following narrating this journey that has been conducted within the real spaces of the city and the ideal and imaginary spaces of the Ottoman intellect actually becomes a subtext for the practices of individuality and early Ottoman modernity. Keywords: Ottoman imagination, Islamic idea of creative imagination, imaginatrix, pool of imagination, levels of perception and cognition, imagination as a perceptive and cognitive faculty, Ibn-i Arabi, Ibn Arabi, Melamis, İsmail Maşuki, Ismail Masuki, Bayrami Melamis, Hamzavi Melamis, Melamis in Istanbul and Edirne, şehrengiz, sehrengiz, Taşlıcalı Yahya, Mesihi, Zati, Nedim, walking in the city, strolling in the Ottoman city, meeting beloved ones in the city, private meetings, garden rituals, landscape rituals.
RumeliDE, 2020
It is wholly acknowledged that prior to the Turks' conquest of Anatolia, this land was inhabited by diverse cultures and civilizations. Following its conquest, however, large segments of the various populations living in Anatolia continued to reside in their native homelands, indicating that the Turks lived together with these indigenous cultures for centuries. Greeks and Romans made up only one aspect of these various cultures. Although nowhere near as pervasive as their Persian and Arab counterparts, the cultures and mythologies of both the Greeks and Romans are discernible in Turkish culture, which is only natural after having shared the same homeland for many years in Anatolia and Europe. One such example is the occasional likening of a beloved's hair to snakes in classical Turkish literature, reminiscent of Medusa's own snake-like hair in Greek mythology. Indeed, the poems written in Greek by Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī and Ahmed Pasha demonstrate that Turkish poets were not complete strangers to Western sources. After providing information about the three Moirai sisters known as the goddesses of fate in Greek and Roman mythology, this article will move on to address how they indirectly appear in classical Turkish literature. Key Words: Greek and Roman Mythology, Moirai, Goddesses of Fate, Three Sisters, Thread of Life, Classical Turkish Literature.
Metaphorizing Places in Classical Turkish Poetry: Idol Houses
International Journal of Literature and Arts
Classical Turkish poetry is important in terms of reflecting the cultural and sociological structure of Ottoman society together with different images and dreams in texts. Places that symbolize the general characteristic structure of a society and nation have also been the main material of poems. In the texts in which Divan poetry put love at the center, idols, one of the objects that symbolize beauty, are among them, when they use concrete signs in their depictions of the beloved, the main actor of this phenomenon. Concepts such as sanem and nigar are products of human art and represent perfect beauty aesthetically. The places of worship of the Christian religion (churches, monasteries, etc.) in which these objects, which are seen as the symbol of beauty, are located, together with the cities and countries identified with these concepts, are frequently used as an element of simile in classical Turkish poetry. The places where these objects are located have taken shape around this meaning. In this study, by examining the texts of classical Turkish poetry, the place of idol and idol concepts in the meaning world of this poem is tried to be determined.