TRACES OF TRADİTİON ON HAYDAR ERGULEN'S POEMS
HAYDAR ERGÜLEN’İN ŞİİRLERİNDE GELENEĞİN İZLERİ

Author : Abdulmecit CANATAK -- Mehmet TÜTAK
Number of pages : 26-50

Abstract

The concept of tradition covers a wide span of topics, ranging from the system of values held by a people to their behavior patterns, from their mentality to their habits. Traditions, handed down from generation to generation, are an expression of spiritual and material accumulation and have a self-preservation reflex. The conflict between this impulse and the idea of novelty and change can be found throughout human history. The determination of traditions to continue their existence against the push for change has had repercussions in poetry, as it has had in many other areas. There was a tendency to break away from tradition in our literature during the Ottoman Reformation Era, which also marked the start of an extensive innovative trend in literature. Yet, having been pushed aside, disrespected, and ignored, the tradition became the focus again starting with the Republic Era, thanks to some respectable people in the field. One of these people was the poet Haydar Ergülen, who thought that Turkish poetry, from its beginning to present day, was an inseparable whole. He believed that a poet or a poem detached from the past could not survive. That is why, in his poetry, he often employed the form, rhythm, and diction features of the folk literature as well as the classical Ottoman poetry tradition. His poetry served as a bridge between the past and the future. However, the existence of these features in Ergülen's poetry was not a mere imitation of the past, but rather an adaptation to the current day, a reinterpretation, and a modern blend. In this paper, all of Haydar Ergülen's poems were studied with the intention of determining their tradition, traditional elements, and how much these elements were employed. To this end, first, the concept of tradition was defined in general terms, followed by a discussion of Ergülen’s views on tradition. In the body part, Ergülen's poems were appraised under the two following categories: "Traditional Content Elements, Pleasure and Imagery World" and "Traditional Form and Rhythm Elements."

Keywords

Tradition, Traditional Elements, Turkish Poetry, Haydar Ergülen

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