Overview

This course aims at providing a detailed analysis of some of the works of contemporary Turkish writers and their point of view on poetics. Examining their theoretical and fictive works, we will explore and describe how the writers define literariness and construct their works.

This course aims at describing the writers’ point of view drawing on their own words on literature, art and aesthetics. We will have two main sources in our study: the selected artistic works of the writers and their books and interviews on poetics. Some of the writers such as Ferit Edgü and Orhan Pamuk have explicitly expressed their ideas on poetics, art and aesthetics while others have not. For example, Yaşar Kemal has never said a word about how he used the epic discourse to build his own way of writing. However, reading between the lines, we can detect the epic discourse and its literary applications in his works. We should also note that he used to call himself ‘Homeros oğlu Yaşar’ (The son of Homeros). Studying on the writers’ understanding of poetics, we will have a chance to discover the ways of interpreting and writing a literary text.