The voice of diary self: self construction in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s diary and its effect on “Canonic Tanpınar

Abstract

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901-1962) has a canonical position in Turkish literature by the effects of his academical and literary works and the subjects in these works about social problems, civilization crisis, changing Turkey, past culture and continuity. In the period of the Republic, Tanpınar, placed himself in an indigenous/eastern but modern and unique literary field. As a figure outside of the reform literature, he could not be included in the canon. However, canonical position of the author had begun to change with the break of Kemalizm together with the change of political power after 1970s and the society’s questioning of the civilization change. Again, the canonical position of the author, who has acquired this position by the statutory, literary and public authorities representing the relation of canon with that what is political, literary and popular, has changed with the publication of his diaries. Published in 2007, Tanpınar’s diaries, namely “Günlükleri Işığında Tanpınar’la Başbaşa” caused the emergence of different segments assessing these diaries. Besides the group considering the diaries as a bomb that destroyed the image of “Magnificent Tanpınar”, another group of critics reminded the fact that Tanpınar was an “ordinary” man like every one else. In the emergence of these groups and the change of perception about Tanpınar, the opposition between the built-in/canonical Tanpınar and the new identities the author set up by his diaries was effective. This thesis manifests the effects of the public and private selves of Tanpınar that the author set through his diaries on the new canonical position of him. In doing this manifestation, through probing into the concept of canon and canon in Turkish literature, it investigates Tanpınar’s changing canonical position before the publication of his diaries and his new position resulting from the diaries. Moreover, it investigates the changed perception of a canonic author through his diaries by examining the “destroying” effects of above mentioned selves on the image of “new” Tanpınar.