Browsing by Subject "Turkish literature--History and criticism."

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Open Access
Arketip bir yolculuk içinde, narsistik bir kitap biçiminde : Beyaz Kale
(2011) Yıldırım (Mirol), Çiğdem
Orhan Pamuk’s third novel The White Castle (1985) is also his first novel referred to as “hard to read” and “incomprehensible”. These two pieces of feedback from conventional readers looking for a fixed meaning in the text has been given precedence in reception of The White Castle, on the plane of plain readers within and outside Turkey. This book, however, is not a literary work aiming to transmit a fixed meaning but wishing to be received and signified in different ways by displaying its structure with its ecriture. This thesis, which scrutinizes The White Castle less from the perspective of “what to tell” than that of “how to tell” and “what to create” by an active reading, consists of three chapters. The first chapter depicts that in The White Castle the structure encompasses the ecriture and that the reader is a part of this structure. The second chapter reveals the narcissistic dynamics of The White Castle and thereby focuses on how the book “gives awareness” to its reader about its structure and ecriture. The third chapter investigates how the reader joins the archetypal journey of The White Castle. Finally, this thesis attests that The White Castle is a self-reflexive structure, and that the “beloved reader” who becomes aware of its essence activates it into a being.
Open Access
Cumhuriyet öncesi kadın yazarların romanlarında toplumsal cinsiyet ve kimlik sorunsalı (1877-1923)
(2012) Günaydın, Ayşegül Utku
Womanhood and gender relationships have been one of the first questions taken up as the natural extension of the modernization paradigm between the declaration of the First Constitution and the Republic. Even though womanhood was declared to be a project, the fact that gender issues were never re-examined in a fundamental manner led to new problems vis-à-vis gender and identity. Opened up by the press, the new public sphere offered women the opportunity to discuss the woman question through articles and novels, and the most significant examples of inquiries concerning identity were expressed through one of the branches of traditional literature and through women‟s novels, a sub-genre that newly came into existence. The questioning of the oppressive mechanisms working on women and created by the responsibilities of the new female identity that went beyond the limits of the family, along with the male point of view floundering in face of this new identity, reflects a common female sensibility and sets forth the essence of this literature. The new female identity emphasizes rationality and the resilience of women, taking certain values of womanhood as its basis, and the female viewpoint is used to demonstrate the consequences of the dissonance between this “new” identity and the expectations of the male identity that represented the mindset of society in general, as personified by husbands, lovers, fathers, and relatives. The image of the isolated and struggling girl, who becomes more profound as she becomes more educated, is the symbol of the newly emerging intellectual woman of the Ottoman society. Opposite this woman in transition are the Ottoman men who are either already “impressed” or ready to be impressed. In short, the female novelists of the era express the need for a social transformation that would have to start at the very foundations of society and restructure the relationship between woman and man, i.e., sexual identities. In discussing the common themes, motifs, and sensibilities of women‟s novels, the dissertation examines the following works: Aşk-ı Vatan (1877) by Zafer Hanım; Muhâdarât (1892), Levâyih-i Hayât (1897-98), Refet, (1898), Udî (1899), and Enîn (1910) by Fatma Aliye Hanım; Uhuvvet (1895) by Selma Rıza Feraceli; Terbiye-i Etfale Ait Üç Hikâye (1895), Hiss-i Rekabet (1896), Bîkes (1897), Mükâfat-ı İlâhiye (1896), Sefalet (1897), Muallime (1899-1901), and Gayya Kuyusu (1920) by Emine Semiye Hanım; Dilharâb (1896-97) by Fatma Fahrünnisa Hanım; Münevver (1905- 06), Ölmüş Bir Kadının Evrak-ı Metrukesi (1905), Yaban Gülü (1920) and Nedret (1922) by Güzide Sabri Aygün; Heyûlâ (1908), Raik’in Annesi (1909), Seviyye Talip (1910), Handan (1912), Yeni Turan (1912), Son Eseri (1913) and Mev’ud Hüküm (1918) by Halide Edib; Şebab-ı Tebah (1911) by Nezihe Muhiddin; Aydemir (1918) by Müfide Ferit Tek; Kara Kitap (1920) by Suat Derviş and Sisli Geceler (1922) by Halide Nusret Zorlutuna.
Open Access
Halk anlatılarında ensest
(2011) Abalı, Nefise
The aim of this study is to ascertain incest theme in Turkish folk narratives and to analyse biological and psychological factors and social and cultural perception of incest phenomenon. In this sense, the incest theme in folk tales, folk stories, poetic epics, folk songs, threnodies and Turkish poems is the analysis in feminist perspective by making use of Jung’s archetypal symbolism. In the first section of the study, Jung’s analytical psychology and archetypes are specified. The ideas of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung on incest are referred to in the context of the Oedipus Complex. Sense of mother-son incest set forth in the Dede Korkut Oğuznameleri is examined while referring to the Oedipus Complex. In the second section, folk songs, folk tales and stories comprising father-daughter and father-in-law-daughter-in-law incest motives are analysed. In the third section of the thesis, the Arzu ile Kamber story which evokes brother-sister incest is assessed. The last section, deals wise brother-in-law-aunt-in-law and brother-in-law-sister-in-law incest in poetic epics, folk songs, threnodies and Turkish poems in the context of the line of descent interrelated by marriage. Incest theme differ according to the types of folk narratives, and any type of incest is examined within its own type of narrative. In consideration of folk narratives, the scope of incest is explained through the effects of Islamic religion and traditions within the framework of social and cultural structure.
Open Access
Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar'ın romanlarında ahlak sorunsalı
(2007) Serdar, Ali
Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar’s (1864-1944) first article titled “İstanbul’da Bir Frenk” (A European in Istanbul) was published in 1884 and from that time onwards his 41 novels, 9 story books, 4 plays, and 6 collection of essays composed of his articles and polemics have been published. In this study, Gürpınar’s ten novels, namely Bir Sevda Denklemi (An Equation of Love, 1899), Metres (The Mistress, 1899), Acı Gülüş (Bitter Laugh, 1923), Ben Deli miyim? (Am I Mad? 1925), Kokotlar Mektebi (The School of Cocottes, 1929), Gönül Bir Yeldeğirmenidir (The Heart is a Windmill, 1943), Dünyanın Mihveri Kadın mı, Para mı? (What Is the Axis of the World, Woman or Money? 1949), Kaderin Cilvesi (Turn of Fortune, 1964), Can Pazarı (A Matter of Life and Death, 1968), and Namuslu Kokotlar (The Virtuous Cocottes, 1973) have been analyzed within the framework of ethical criticism, especially with regard to the repeated themes, the interference of the author and the narrator, and the intellectual sources of Gürpınar’s thought. Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar had adopted a moral discourse in his writings and created his fictional world around the themes of struggle for existence, starvation, moral decline, and infidelity, which are among significant notions in the field of ethics. The intrusion of the author and the narrator in fictional worlds are other salient and constitutive features of Gürpınar’s fiction. Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and social Darwinist ideas, to which he had frequently referred, also played substantial roles in the formation of his fictional world. That is why it is vital to understand the system of values that lies beneath the author’s thought while analyzing his works. In this context, the criticisms regarding Gürpınar’s idea of the novel have been reconsidered; his works have been examined from the perspective of ethical criticism; and the system of values that shape his fictional world has been portrayed through a text-centered reading.
Open Access
II Mehmet dönemi : "Osmanlı Padişahı" ve divan edebiyatı inşası arasındaki ilişki
(2015) Akcan Altıntaş, Melike Aksu
Mehmed II, also known as Mehmed the Conqueror, is acknowledged as the founder of the Ottoman Empire and the initiator of what is referred as the “Ottoman Sultan” in many prominent works (İnalcık’s et al.) conducted on the concerning period in Ottoman history, the 15th century. Accordingly, in this century, the total image of Ottoman Sultan had been formed through the corresponding and complementary realms of the military, political, cultural, and many others. Being a patrimonial society as such, the Ottomans saw the cultural successes and improvements as much an important part of the image of Sultan as military or political accomplishments and victories. Herein, two important points came to the fore with respect to the image of the sultan: First, the construction of this image through poetry put literature in a closer relationship with the military, political, or economical. Second, it paved the way for an interdependency and interaction between the literary field and the sultan. Thus, in the 15th century, an intrinsic relationship and even a common destiny between Divan literature, particularly poetry, and the sultan dominated the Ottoman literary field. In keeping with this objective, in this thesis, I illustrate the reciprocal and configurational relationship between the construction of the image of the sultan and the literary field with a specific eye towards what is called “Acem etkisi” (Iranian influence) and the rise of qasida form – viz., the important literary trends and tendencies of the 15th century.
Open Access
Orhan Pamuk'un Kar'ında epigrafik ilişkiler
(2007) Riley, Nathaniel Brann
Orhan Pamuk’s political novel Snow’s multifaceted provocativeness is a conscious strategy of literary contrast designed to question all manner of prejudice. By attracting attention to the inaccuracy of stereotypical labels, the identity-related contradictions in the novel’s characters invite the reader to originality and individualism. The book’s illustration of opposites like white-black and heaven-hell using blurry shades of gray and pastels, as well as the snowflake diagram’s multidimensional symmetry, indicate the fundamental irreducibility of reality’s complexity. Within this context, the epigraphs quoted from Robert Browning’s “Bishop Blougram’s Apology”, Stendhal’s La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma), Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed (or The Demons or The Devils), and Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes all bear significance for Snow. When the partly concrete, partly abstract similarities between Snow and its epigraphical sources are taken as the point of departure, several apparently significant structural contrasts stand out. Ultimately, this strategy of contrast can be evaluated as pluralist and antiOrientalist, as opposed to prejudiced and racist as widely supposed. Thus, more than mere deferential “tips of the hat” to the masters of the political novel genre, Snow’s epigraphs may be considered intertextual replies, parallels or parodies.
Open Access
Osmanlı-Türk romanında ulusal oryantalizm ve oryantalist uluslaşma
(2012) Erdem, Servet
The Ottoman-Turkish novel had been restricted to Istanbul for a quite long period of its relatively short history. When certain authors started to expand the fictive geography of texts towards Anatolia, this movement from the center to the periphery was under the influences of an “atmosphere of mind” (the general mentality of the time) that was determined by the overwhelming apprehensions of belated modernization and nationalization. The texts produced in this period, however, are rather problematical with regard to the representation of Anatolia, which is textualized as an internal Orient. Applying Orientalism, Edward Said’s influential and inspiring archeological analysis of the Western hegemony on Orient as the theoretical frame, this study aims to analyze the process of orientalization of Anatolia by the early Republican intellectuals and bureaucrats. The analysis will leave the question of whether these misrepresentations and, strongly manipulated knowledge and discriminative discourses had something to do with the truth of Anatolia or not aside. Rather, it will attempt to clarify the main motive behind Kemalists’ burden of modernization and reconstruction. The corpus of the texts that are discussed includes The Little Pasha (Küçük Paşa) by Ebubekir Hazim, Beat the Slut (Vurun Kahpeye) by Halide Edip, Savage (Yaban) by Yakup Kadri, The Smell of Earth (Toprak Kokusu) by Resat Enis, Our Village (Bizim Köy) by Mahmut Makal and If the Soil Wakes (Toprak Uyanırsa) by Sevket Sureyya Aydemir. Since the process of orientalization that is examined in this study is not an inter-national/cultural one, but rather a domestic one, and since this phenomenon is intrinsically related to the rise of nationalization, I decided to conceptualize it as “national orientalism”. After discussing Orientalism and its effects in the first chapter, I examine the textual politics and strategies from the perspective of “national orientalism”. In the last chapter my aim is to reveal the nexus between orientalization of Anatolia and Turkification of it by reversing the point of view and textual politics concerning “national orientalism”. That is why the last chapter is entitled as “Orientalist Nationalization”. According to the analyses within the scope of this study, by orientalizing Anatolia, the re-constructist cadre’s goal in the Republic was to alleviate the oppression resulting from the confrontation with the West. In addition, it was to gain control over a community (Anatolians and/or villagers) that comprised nearly 85 percent of the population at the time –a community that could have potentially posed an obstacle to the Kemalist revolutions and transformation. These goals were related to the early Republican politics and practices regarding the creation of a new collective identity: the Turkification of homo-Ottomanicus, which aimed to maintain social solidarity and the prevention of the development of social classes. The process produced a militarist community that would voluntarily die and kill for the symbols, rituals and borders of the nation-state. Thus, on the basis of the novels that are analyzed in this study, my thesis is that in Turkey during the construction of nationhood, the nation-state produced its own texts and the texts produced their own nation-state.
Open Access
Seküler hayatla tasavvuf arasındaki ilişkide köprü metinler : sâkînâmeler
(2013) Durgunay, Banu
Sakinames, recounting bazms, are perhaps the best example of realistic classical Ottoman poetry. Research on sakinames, however, is mosty limited to the development and classification of the genre or to an analysis of sakinames by a single poet. A comparative analysis of sakinames produced in different centuries which encapsulate realist narrations of the era, thus shedding light on contemporary life, will enable an examination of variable and unvariable aspects of the context and the genre. Drawing from this perspective, this research embarks on a comparative analysis of Revânî’s İşretnâme from the 16th century, Atâyî’s ‘Âlemnümâ’ from the 17th century and finally Aynî’s Sâkînâme from the 19th century. The aim is to reveal the realism in sakinames by comparing the masnavis with their contemporaries. Focusing on the narrations of the bazms, the author will elucidate how the intellectual environment was preserved and even sustained throughout centuries. When defining the genre, sakiname, it is posited that the sakiname originated either from Islamic mysticism or worldly concerns. Research drawing on this classification neglects their worldly characteristics and approaches sakinames from purely a Sufistic perspective. More often than not, information on the poet’s life is considered as supporting evidence for a sufistic perspective of the masnavi. While it is necessary to examine sufistic associations in the sakinames, the realist narrations of the bazm should also be considered. This study draws on the Halil İnalcık’s assertion that religion and sufism in upper class culture coexist with the old Persian tradition. As can be observed in Revânî’s and Atâyî’s masnavis, the intensity of sufistic associations in bazm imageries in sakinames increase when fundamentalism dominates social life. Aynî’s Sâkînâme holds a special place in this study. Aynî organizes his work in such a way that the sufistic and worldly aspects of his narration are separated. The first chapter of Sâkînâme, examines the intellectual work while the second studies the environment where they were created.
Open Access
Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e Ressentiment'in dönüşümü : Nezihe Muhddin ve Leylâ Erbil
(2012) Dik, Tuba
Leyla Erbil, in addition to her handling the social and political facts in her literal work, has a unique place in Turkish literature because of her expression techniques. Nezihe Muhiddin, on the other hand, has reflected the problems of her own era to her works; critized the institution of slavery and concubinage. The facts that both Leyla Erbil and Nezihe Muhiddin adapt the sociological aspects of the life to literary texts, and they focus on woman issues make them significant to consider in this work. The aim of this paper is to make comparisons of these two writers who both examine the social events. This comperative work aims to evaluate/explain the problems occured due to the social statue of women, and how these problems are concluded; thus how these conclusions are reflected on literature. Considering the social statue of women; Nietzche's technical term "ressentiment", for which he uses to explain the slavery ethics, will be highlighted in the paper. In the first chapter, some background the information is presented about the identity of writers and their works which are examined in this paper. The works studied are Benliğim Benimdir!(I Am The Master!), Güzellik Kraliçesi(Beauty Queen), Sus Kalbim Sus(Hush Now Hush) which are written by Nezihe Muhiddin, and Leyla Erbil's Tuhaf Bir Kadın(A Strange Woman), Karanlığın Günü(The Day of Darkness), Üç Başlı Ejderha(Three Headed Dragon), Mektup Aşkları(Love in Letters), Cüce(The Dwarf) and Kalan (Remains). After the second chapter, titled as "The Notions that can be Associated with Modernism" which includes the explanation of the "ressentiment and triangular desire" , the modernisation process in Turkey is historically examined in the third chapter, titled as " The Critical view on Turkish Modernisation Project." A new perspective is brought by means of hegemonical menhood and gender. The emergence of ressentiment and the transformation of ressentiment in women's modernization process are examined and explained with the examples from the chosen works, in the last chapter titled as " The Ressentiment of Women on Literal Level".
Open Access
Tanzimat'tan Servet-i Fünûn'a anneliğin kaybı ve çocuksuzluk
(2012) Başer Çoban, Seda
From Tanzimat till to destination of Servet-i Fünûn literature, not only the fact that the character of ‘the mother’ did not take a central role in Tanzimat novels, but also the fact that the loss of the mother character and childlessness was frequently observed in the novels about forbidden love starting with the Servet-i Fünûn, allow for studying under this title, in the Turkish literature course. After the proclamation of Tanzimat, while the importance of motherhood was increasing with the effect of the modernization process and the number of writings highlighting this importance was rising, motherhood was dealt with in the literature very limitedly. In this context, as the mother characters in Tanzimat novels were represented with a low-authority, the married women who were in a forbidden love were carried to the reader by releasing from the role of mother, in Servet-i Fünûn novels. In Ottoman, on the one hand, many terms directing the social and individual life -like sexuality, love, family or child- taking some new meanings and meanwhile, along with these new meanings, the life of the women got changed apparently, on the other hand, the holiness of the motherhood survived under the outcome of the traditional perspectives. Accordingly, in this thesis, the loss of motherhood and childlessness is discussed in company with the effects of the modernization by means of the some novels from the Tanzimat and Servet-i Fünûn era and in a supplement part, the same context is tracked in the literature of the republic era.
Open Access
Teselliyi eşyada aramak : Türkçe romanda nesneler
(2012) Uçar, Aslı
This study examines the literary roles of material objects in nine Turkish novels and seeks to develop an original framework for analysing things. Theories of the novel still lack an analytical frame for the study of objects. The first chapter deals with a number of theoretical approaches with regard to the things and lays down the bases of five original categorical constructs for analysing the fictional objects: Objectcharacters (personified things), character-objects (Thingified characters), quasiobjects (spatialised objects), metonymical objects and metaphorical objects. The second chapter focuses on character and object relations in three novels, namely Araba Sevdası (Carriage Affair), Udî (The Lutist) and Aşk-ı Memnu (Forbidden Love) published between 1850-1900. The roles of objects in Tatarcık (Sandfly), Çamlıcadaki Eniştemiz (Our Uncle in Çamlıca) and Huzur (A Mind at Peace) are scrutinized in the third chapter. The fourth chapter explores the poetics of objects in Fikrimin İnce Gülü (The Slender Rose of My Desire), Sonsuzluğa Nokta (A Dot to Eternity) and Masumiyet Müzesi (The Museum of Innocence) that are published after 1950. The final chapter is devoted to the discussion of textual findings. Except two, all selected novels share a similar pattern: The main characters seek the comfort of material things in an attempt to reduce emotional deprivations, which in turn leads to the personification of objects. Objects not only play a role as metonymical parts of the characters and settings, but also function as characters and space themselves in the narratives.
Open Access
Türk edebiyatında İslamcı mizah : Ömer Faruk Dönmez romanları
(2013) Sevinç, Gizem
The existence of a tradition of Islamist humor seems imperceptible after an investigation of magazines published during the republican era in Turkey. The emergence of such a genre coincides with the political milieu of 2000s. Literary works that contain characteristics of Islamist humor of the contributors of Cafcaf magazine appear as proper instances to inspect such a genre. Unimaginable coexistence of the concepts of religion and humor within a long lived humor magazine during the reign of a party with Islamist tendencies cannot be regarded as coincidence. The concept of humor, characteristically determined as an instrument of political criticism against the governing parties, became a tool of supporting the ruling party as regards Islamist humor in Turkey in 2000s. The aim of this study is to investigate such an alternative genre of humor in Turkey, its characteristics and rationale, regarding its relationship with the political rule and its praxis of discourse. In this context, Cafcaf magazine, which has been published since 2007, and novels of one of its contributors Ömer Faruk Dönmez, Hamza (2012) and Bir Yobazın Günlüğü (2013) are chosen to expose this relationship. The examples, determined as instruments of Islamist ideology, reflect the ruling political tendencies and their hegemony on daily life practices instead of literary concerns.
Open Access
Türkçe edebiyatta kolektif belleğin yansımaları
(2012) Ulusoy Aranyosi, Ezgi
In this study, entitled “Reflections of Collective Memory in Turkish Literature”, I argue that literary texts, specifically narratives, can function as a means of collective memory, and I take up the task of explaining how these texts reveal different aspects of collective memory. In order to ground this claim, I first present a survey of various ways in which collective memory has been conceptualized, and then settle the definition of collective memory that will be referred to throughout the study. In the second chapter, I explicate the relationship between collective memory and narrative by appeal to Jan Assmann's three-fold characterization that concern the narrativeness of figures of memory. I relate this three-fold characterization of memory figures, which consists of a concrete reference to time and place, a concrete reference to a group, and an independent capacity for reconstruction, to the constructive elements of literary texts. One possible answer to the question of how literary texts function as grounds on which memory unfolds is discussed in the third chapter, “Reading the Memory: A Methodological Attempt”. In this chapter, demonstrating why a literary text by its very nature is methodological, the need for a metamethod is called for, for further literary analyses. The metamethod, taking the ways in which narratives are formed and conveyed as objects of analysis, focuses directly on how, namely the method by which, literary texts adapt as memory narratives. In the fourth chapter, three narratives of Turkish literature, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale (Mario Levi), The Encounter (Markar Esayan), and The Reflection (Seyit Alp) are analyzed as examples of how literary texts could relate to collective memory in various ways. These texts, as subjects of the literary analyses run in this study, demonstrate the reflections of collective memory in Turkish literature.
Open Access
Ulus-devletleşme süreci ve " 'Türk' edebiyatı"nın inşası (1923-1950)
(2012) Karakoç, Kani İrfan
In this dissertation, bringing into focus the relationship between the process of nation building and Turkish literature the mutual influence between the two is analyzed. Within this framework the following subjects are focused on: 1) The transmission of the concept of literature into the early Republican period and its meanings; 2) the appropriation of Namık Kemal, “the poet of the homeland”, during this period and his influence upon the process that is being studied; 3) the newlyestablished state’s control over the dramatic plays that were to be displayed by the People’s Houses; 4) the attempts of the state and some authors at modernizing people’s books/popular folk tales and the Karagöz plays in accordance with the new regime’s principles. The main argument of the dissertation is that the cultural policies of the early Republican period and their implementation through the process of construction, i.e. the intervention of the state in literature and the mission it assigns to it, “constructed” Turkish literature in certain ways. In conclusion, taking the cultural policies of the new Turkish state as a reference point, shortcomings of the Turkish literature which was formed by the nation building process, and the necessity for making up for these shortcomings first through the treasury of literature in Turkish, and then of literature of Turkey were emphasized.
Open Access
"Ulusal alegori"den imparatorluk eğretilemesine : Osmanlı romanında çok-katmanlı anlatı yapısı
(2008) Başlı, Şeyda
Early Ottoman novels are simple “imitation”s of the French realism from the point of post-Republican critical discourse that establishes a direct relationship between the birth of the novel and the Ottoman modernisation process of the nineteenth century. Combining this claim with the “fact” that Ottoman novelists merely instrumentalised the genre in order to pursue their political aims, the birth of the Ottoman novel is assumed to be a process of technical “inferiority”. The main source of such inferiority, hence, is supposed to be the influence of the Ottoman Classical (Divan) poetry. On the other hand, this study essentially claims that a different theoretical paradigm is necessary to be able to evaluate both the process of social transformation that determines the emergence of the novel as a literary form and the novels produced in this process. Then, the source of such degrading viewpoint is not the novels themselves but the Eurocentric theoretical perspective of the post-Republican critical discourse. This study provides the literature survey on the post-Republican critiques about the Ottoman novels and the analysis of their multi-layered narrative structure to prove its basic claim. The multi-layered narrative structure is the result of the transformative synthesis of the narrative techniques of both the French realism and the Divan poetry. The novels are interpreted in a way that would reveal the political discussions on the transformation of the power structure of the empire and the aesthetical evaluation of the novel as a literary genre. The love narrative provided on the literal level acts as the basis of this multi-layered structure and carries two different narrative layers by synthesising the metaphorical narrative structure of the Divan poetry with technical narrative tools of the French realism.