Reflections on Sezai Karakoç’s Opinions About the Genre of Story in His Works
Yunus Emre ÖzsaraySezai Karakoç was one of the leading poets of the İkinci Yeni poem and also produced important works in terms of story art. Although he had no intention of being known as a storyteller, his stories, just like his plays, can be shown among the exemplary texts of metaphysical sensibility in Turkish literature. The formal and thematic orientations he revealed in his stories exactly match the sensitivity in his poetry. Karakoç presented examples in his stories that could be an alternative to both existentialist literature and socialist realist literature. Sezai Karakoç presented a different perspective to the art of stories, not only with his stories but also with his views about stories. His approaches to stories can be found both in his articles titled “Kasaba Edebiyatı” and “Romanla Hikâyenin Arası Açılıyor,” as well as among the lines of his intellectual corpus. These approaches form the intellectual basis of his stories. He made proposals that drew on local sources while also taking into account universal artistic trends. He put these proposals into practice in his stories as well as in his poems. If one were to consider Sezai Karakoç to have had a thesis he conceptualized as Diriliş, his stories are among the parts that complete this thesis. If one accepts that the resurrection thesis is also a literary movement, the reflections of this movement in the art of storytelling need to be revealed. In this context, this article will compile Sezai Karakoç’s views on stories that occur between the lines of his books while at the same time attempting to show how he had put these views into practice in his own stories.
Sezai Karakoç’un Hikâye Türüne Dair Görüşlerinin Hikâyelerine Yansımaları
Yunus Emre Özsarayİkinci Yeni şiirinin öncü şairlerinden Sezai Karakoç, hikâye sanatı açısından da önemli eserler ortaya koymuştur. Hikâyeci olarak anılmak yönünde özel bir çabası olmasa da hikâyelerini tıpkı piyesleri gibi Türk edebiyatında metafizik duyarlığın örnek metinleri arasında gösterebiliriz. Hikâyelerinde ortaya koyduğu biçimsel ve tematik yönelişler, onun şiir sanatının duyarlılığıyla birebir örtüşür. Sezai Karakoç, hikâyelerinde hem varoluşçu edebiyat hem de sosyalist gerçekçi edebiyata alternatif olabilecek numuneler ortaya koymuştur. Sezai Karakoç, sadece hikâyeleriyle değil, hikâyeye dair görüşleriyle de hikâye sanatına farklı bir bakış açısı sunmuştur. Hem “Kasaba Edebiyatı” ve “Romanla Hikâyenin Arası Açılıyor” isimli yazılarında hem de bunlardan ayrı olarak düşünsel külliyatının satır aralarında kendisinin hikâyeye dair yaklaşımlarını bulabiliriz. Bu yaklaşımlar, onun hikâyelerinin fikrî zeminini oluşturur. Yerli kaynaklardan beslenen fakat evrensel sanat akımlarını hesaba katan teklifler sunar. Bu tekliflerini tıpkı şiirlerinde olduğu gibi hikâyelerinde de pratiğe döker. Sezai Karakoç’un Diriliş olarak kavramlaştırdığı bir tezinin olduğunu dikkate aldığımızda, hikâyeleri de bu tezi tamamlayan parçalardandır. Diriliş tezinin aynı zamanda bir edebiyat akımı olduğunu kabul edersek, bu akımın hikâye sanatındaki yansımalarını da ortaya koymak gerekmektedir. Bu bağlamda, Sezai Karakoç’un Diriliş tezi çerçevesindeki yaklaşımlarının yeni bir bakış açısı getirebileceği düşüncesiyle, kitaplarının satır aralarında kalmış hikâyeye dair görüşleri derlenecek, aynı zamanda bu görüşleri kendi hikâyelerinde nasıl pratiğe döktüğü gösterilmeye çalışılacaktır.
When making a historical evaluation of the genre in the post-1950 period of modern Turkish literature, one sees that the works of the literati who produced output other than original medium were unfortunately either ignored or not given their due in terms of literary art with an experimental pattern, regardless of the literary genre. This may be the reason why that, in addition to the poems of many names who have come to the fore with their novels and stories and that can be considered important, the stories, novels, and plays of those who became prominent with their poetry are not taken seriously. This approach is a situation that emerged after the Ikinci Yeni [The Second Renewal] and the 1950s’ generation of storytellers. After these generations, a general pattern emerged as if the story writer should not write poetry, and the poet should not turn to stories or novels. This must be due to the fact that the representatives of these two movements that have important effects on the next generations were only storytellers or only poets who did not write in other fields of literature. Although some classifications are found such as poet, story writer, and essayist, literature in fact requires writing in every field in which the pen gains merit, and Sezai Karakoç wrote works in genres such as poetry, plays, essays, and stories, just as previous generations had also produced works in different fields. From another point of view, when one considers Sezai Karakoç’s Diriliş [revival] thesis, it presents a unity; Karakoç has left a complete corpus like a mosque bringing together different yields on Islamic art and has revealed each piece he left as different manifestations of the same sensitivity. Of course, some works may be more in focus and others on the periphery, but the main thing is the sparkle of that art in each of them. When one thinks about the works of Sezai Karakoç, the place where the light hits the most is known to be in his poems’ but his stories, plays, opinions, and essays on fiction are also rare works that cannot be distinguished from one another in this context. Neither can one distinguish his poetry from stories, nor his stories from other genres.
Sezai Karakoç cared about being fed from local sources in his views on stories. He thought that authors should have this sensitivity. He also thought that literature that does not feed on local sources is a pale literature. For this reason, he adopted an understanding that would reflect the traditional accumulation of Turkish literature, folkloric elements, belief forms, and customs of society without judgment and not with the eyes of an Orientalist. He thought that many names writing stories in Turkish literature had been unable to present an insider’s view of society. His sensitivity is most clearly observed in the articles titled “Romanla Hikâyenin Arası Açılıyor” and “Kasaba Edebiyatı.” This sensitivity did not remain just at the theoretical level; he also put it into practice in his stories. Many poets in Turkish literature have also written stories. As a poet, Sezai Karakoç may well be claimed to have also tried stories. However, considering that Sezai Karakoç is the pioneer of an idea movement that he had conceptualized as a revival, his stories can be thought to have a different aspect from other poets who’d written stories. This is because Sezai Karakoç, rather than being a poet who wrote with the idea of writing a story, can be said to have presented an example of the idea of revival in the art of the story. The idea of revival has different alternative ideas, from law, education, and economy to art and literature. Sezai Karakoç endeavored to reveal how stories should be from the perspective of revival in the art of literature.
Sezai Karakoç’s stories must not be considered as a poet’s story experiment but as an example in the history of Turkish storytelling. Karakoç added a new aesthetic sensibility to the formal innovations carried from poetry to story and associated the weight of words’ meaning with traditional codes in his stories, just like in his poems. Thus, by associating the art of story with his poetic views, he wanted to offer examples to those who wanted to write stories around the idea of revival. In this context, the article tries to place Sezai Karakoç’s storytelling within this framework while also trying to place Sezai Karakoç’s views on fiction and the attitude of the artist in the emergence of works of art. Considering that Karakoç’s views were a result of his revival thesis, the article will try to show how Sezai Karakoç’s stories are the complement of the idea of revival.
