The split in Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca’s poetry: wandering into the valley of Çocuk ve Allah

Abstract

This study focuses on the patterns of the construction of the distinction between the private sphere and public sphere, which becomes visible in Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca’s poetry book Çocuk ve Allah (1940). The distinction between the independent sphere of the aesthetics upon which the poetry of Dağlarca is built and the way the poet approaches the social, political and religious issues could also be observed in the memories of the poet. While the use and the position of infant in the poems of the poetry book, Çocuk ve Allah are considered in parallel with the poet’s childhood in this thesis, Allah is taken as an authoritative father who stands against this infant. From this point of view, this book is a product of an endeavour of poeticizing the split arising from the distinction between private and public spheres. The split, at the same time, has another reference: the use of infant in Çocuk ve Allah is in such a way that it renders Allah profane. As Giorgio Agamben mentions, this results from the disruption of the ritual of Allah, namely the authority, by the “play” of the infant. The move that causes the rupture in the authority of Allah, thus secularizing the poetry of Dağlarca, enables the poet to build his own private sphere. As a result, the distinction between the infant and Allah and the distinction between play and ritual, in other words the existence of the split adopts a characteristic that guarantees the independent sphere of the poet.