Nâzım Hikmet'in Memleketimden İnsan Manzaraları'nda imajlar : toplum, tarih ve sinema

Abstract

In this study, it is argued that Nâzım Hikmet‘s (1902-1963) work Memleketimden İnsan Manzaraları (MİM – Human Landscapes From My Country) was composed with a language prioritizing images, in order to draw attention to the difference between thinking with words and thinking with images. The fundamental fabric of the Nâzım Hikmet‘s poetry is knitted together to equip the poem with the capacity of techniques generally related to various forms of prose, especially the novel, and the visual mediums of modern theatre and cinema. This was to enable the poem to represent reality in its rich multi-dimensionality. It is possible to witness the evolution of the fabric of Nâzım Hikmet‘s poetry by observing the clearly discernable evolution of the images in his early poems to MİM. In this evolution, the abstract images of an acquired poetry language are transformed into the concrete images aiming to establish unmediated links with the perceived world. These images in MİM become operational in capturing a degree of realism compatible with the fragmented nature of the modern world and its contemporary technologies. The images in MİM therefore become the determining factor in creating a literature that operates across various genres and mediums of art. Most of the images in MİM have the qualities of sensory intuitions. This phenomenon stems from Nâzım Hikmet‘s fidelity to the dialectical and historical materialism of Marxist tradition, that oblige the artist to act also as historian and sociologist. The images in MİM are not only the vehicle for verbal description but also aim to connect to the senses directly as if they intend to transcend the boundaries of the language. Nâzım Hikmet choses to think of his poetry with the help of images in order to represent the social structure and the historical events in realistic forms and to reshape the art in the context of the technology of his epoch. In other words, the images in MİM become the means with which to historicize things, events and characters; to analyze social structures and to open new avenues for the poem to explore, by pursuing the dialectical evolution of various literary and artistic forms. This thesis proposes a reading of MİM which prioritizes the images. The concept of image is defined, and a theoretical framework provided in the ―Introduction‖ section of the thesis by drawing mostly upon the work of W.J.T Mitchell. There is also included a preface illustrating the evolution of images in Nâzim Hikmet‘s work with the help of a series of quotes from his works. The first chapter titled ―The images which figure social types‖ studies how Nâzım Hikmet relies on images to categorize the characters in his work as representatives of various social types. This chapter also explores the sociological intent behind this categorization through the description of the characters' appearances and by presenting their ideas and their conversations with others. This section benefits greatly from George Simmel‘s ―Sociology of senses‖ and Ulus Baker‘s ―Sociology of affects‖, for its theoretical considerations. The second chapter, titled ―Images that writes history‖ examines how characters and events are historicized in the MİM. Nâzım Hikmet adopts different modes of dramatization for different characters when writing their particular personal histories. The main theoretical inspiration in depicting and interpreting these modes comes from Hayden White‘s Metahistory. The poet‘s careful focus on the images of every day life, and the relevance of autobiographical quality of the work in writing history constitutes the others subtitles in this chapter. The relation of the work to the cinematic art form is explored in the last chapter titled ―Cine-images‖, by studying the various descriptions of the movements and the recurring cinematographic elements in the MİM. Nâzım Hikmet‘s own experience of cinema has played a significant role in his discovery of the strength of the image in creating ideas. Gilles Deleuze‘s reflections on cinema have inspired the evaluation of cinematographic images in the MİM. Finally, the thesis discusses the extent to which MİM‘s poetic characteristics (which contain various literary forms and benefits from the possibilities of different art forms) overlap with the synthesis founded by Christophe Wall-Romana with the term of ―cinepoetry‖.