Browsing by Subject "naturalism"

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Open Access
Ahmet Mithat Efendi ve Beşir Fuat'a göre gerçekçilik
(2004) Cankara, Murat
Mithat Efendi (1844-1912) and Beşir Fuat (1852-1887) by focusing on their articles and letters on the subject. It is usual to study the development of realism in Turkish literature by only taking the novels into account. However, articles are a valuable source of information in order to understand how realism was interpreted by Ottoman writers. The texts focused on in this thesis are the newspaper articles and letters of Ahmet Mithat Efendi and Beşir Fuat, who developed opposing views on realism. These articles and letters were mostly published during the 1880s and 1890s. Ahmet Mithat Efendi rejected realism both on aesthetic and non-aesthetic grounds. Yet, it has also been noted that he used the concept of “verisimilitude” and asserted that a novel should seem to be true even if it was imaginary. One other important aspect of Ahmet Mithat’s interpretation of realism is his effort to appropriate and adapt it to the Ottoman context. On the other hand, it has been indicated that Beşir Fuat’s approach to literary realism is just the opposite of Ahmet Mithat’s. Beşir Fuat, who criticizes romanticism, classical Ottoman poetry and the role of imagination in literature underlines the necessity that a writer should work like a historian or a sociologist. He is also against elaborate language and states that the primary aim of the literary language is to transmit ideas to the reader in a clear and exact way. It has been concluded that there is not only one interpretation of realism in Ottoman literature at the end of the nineteenth century. The fact that the writers of the period did not simply imitate their French contemporaries and tried to transform their conception of realism is also within the conclusions that have been reached.
Open Access
Aşk-ı Memnu'da cennet imgeleri
(2004) Aksoy, Süreyya Elif
Aşk-ı Memnu (Forbidden Love) (1900) by Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil (1868-1945) is seen as the “first real novel” in Turkish literature by some critics. It is highly praised for its technical merits and psychological realism. Aşk-ı Memnu is considered to be a naturalist novel, bearing in mind the sound causality relationships in the stories of the characters. The major role played by hereditary and social influences are considered within this framework. At the same time, criticism of the novel noted its isolation from society and its style embellished with fantastic elements. These observations were interpreted as a deficiency in terms of the naturalist literature. Aşk-ı Memnu displays a rich textual creation. Among the observations that can be made in this respect are visions of paradise and abstract descriptions of characters which remind the reader of figures from oral culture. These narrative elements serve a specific end in the novel; they help dissolve the contrasts based on sexuality and chastity. Seen from this perspective, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s usage of the visions of paradise does not harm the naturalist dimension of the novel. In this thesis, it is demonstrated that in Aşk-ı Memnu, the names given to characters as well as descriptions of real or imaginary gardens make references to the mythical narrative of paradise found in the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions. Furthermore, these references that are hidden in details can be related to the characters in the novel and as a result it is revealed that moral values concerning sexuality are parodied. The author highlights the pathological character of a girl’s love for her father by placing the two in a fictional space of paradise. On the other hand, an adulteress visualises her longing for an honorable life with elements of the image of paradise. In addition to these, the emphasis on hereditary sexual drive and the inclination to do the forbidden, also links the novel with the main theme of the narrative of the Garden of Eden.