The romantic roots of Turkish poetry :|romantic subjectivity in Abdülhak Hamid Tarhan's poetry

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the romantic subjectivity in Abdülhak Hâmid Tarhan’s poetry. It argues that Abdülhak Hâmid was the real pioneer of modern Turkish poetry, the fundamental characteristics and conceptualization of which were justified by Namık Kemal in the second half of the nineteenth century. By closely examining the first examples of new poetry produced by Hâmid, it aims to manifest how modern Turkish poetry was differentiated from classical poetry and on which concepts and themes this differentiation were based. The dissertation is based on the idea that the struggle to modernize literature only makes sense if it is analyzed as a part of grand modernization project that could essentially be seen as a struggle to appropriate a certain kind of European subjectivity; that is, romantic subjectivity. This new subjectivity can be seen in modern literary conceptions of Turkish literature and its first examples of poetry. It is a romantic realism which the founding fathers have propounded when they were trying to value the new literature against the classical one and Hâmid represents romantic realism especially in his poetry on nature. This dissertation further asserts that nature poetry associated with romantic subjectivity is a fundamental characteristic of Hâmid’s poetics. In these poems Hâmid succeeds in creating a poetic conception that stresses on what is seen and transforms the physical reality by means of romantic imagination. This shows a fundamental shift from classical poetry, which was basically an allegory of the world beyond. Along with nature poems, tragic discernment brought by awareness of death appears as another attribute of romantic subjectivity in Hâmid’s poetry. This new poetic expression can be seen in Hâmid’s Makber, considered the most important poetry collection in nineteenth century Turkish literature. By making one’s personal life the subject matter of literature, Hâmid brings romantic individuality into Turkish poetry. Through this way the idea of autonomous originality instead of originality in classical poetry based on diversification becomes one of the fundamental attributions of Turkish poetry. Finally, by creating a poetry showing major characteristics of romantic subjectivity and imagination, Abdülhak Hâmid Tarhan paved the way for modern poetry for the following generation of poets.