Türk şiirinde taşra : 1859-1959

“The Province in Turkish Poetry: 1859-1959” is a study which focuses on the transformation of the fact of province in the history of Turkish poetry. In this study, it is elaborated that how the province, which is described as the regions outside the literal center, is treated in the poetry. The features which arose from the narratives of province with its nature and inhabitants are the area of interest of this thesis. This study, in which the language used in the poems, the viewpoint of the persona and the preferred images are analyzed, the transformation of the features that emerge in the narration of the province are explained. In this study, it is identified that the objective realities of the province didn’t reflect well enough in the poetry. In the poems which narrate the province, the province is mainly a means to explain a certain thought. In these poems, a language that imitates the language and art of province is used, when the elitist and standard language of the center is neglected. The personas in these poems, could only identify the different forms that they met by transforming them to the formal information of the aesthetic ideology which was disseminated by the center. In these poems, therefore, the visual images and metaphors are dominant. The province, which was narrated in the period of Divan poetry, is not the whole Ottoman geography but the central states. In the period of the Republic, the province is called as the places that are far from the sea. Although there are many common features in the narrations of province, it is observed that three different regions are treated with three different ways: Near province (Edirne, Bursa, Ege Basin), far province (Eskişehir-Afyon line, Central Anatolia, Western and Central Black Sea and the inner regions of Western and Central Mediterranean) and the deep province (Sivas, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia, Eastern Mediterranean and the inner parts of Eastern Black Sea). In near province, otherworldliness, eroticism, prosperity, happiness, pleasure and daily troubles are manifested. In far province, poverty, identification with provincial, immigration, mechanization in agriculture and popular symbols are used. In deep province, rebellion, nationality, underdevelopment, the desire for enlightenment, bravery and epic discourse are remarkable.