The pursuit of new antagonist discourses: politics in poetry of the 1980s

Abstract

The thesis is about the relationship between politics and Turkish poetry in the decade from 1980 to 1990. This decade is characterized by the 12 September 1980 coup d’état and the incorporation of the country to the global economy. This study interrogates changes in the culture and literature of Turkish society in this new context. Turkish poetry of the Republican period carried political and social references - except for movements such as “Second New” - until the 1980s. The military coup, I argue, facilitated the rise of a new abstract poetry with its own micro-politics. In this poetry, political content swung towards individualism, and form changed along with the content. The present disser-tation analyzes the changes in the purpose, theme and representation of post-1980s poetry along with changes in its socio-political environment.