Understanding Ara Nesil Poetry with Reference to Poetry Books Published Between 1880-1895

Modern voices echoed in almost every area in life after the declaration of tazminat in 1839 and, ultimately, spreaded to turkish literature as well after 1859. In this sense, poetry has been the first to open the doors to novelty and to be modernized. However, modern understanding started in 1859 and evolved into a different direction, especially a modern and individualist literature emerged in the hands of Recaizâde Mahmud Ekrem and Abdülhak Hâmid. While Recaizâde Mahmud Ekrem mostly influenced his followers with his opinions on poetry, Abdülhak Hâmid influenced his followers with his innovations in poetry. However, not adding Muallim Naci next to these two names is unfair to him. As a matter of fact, aforementioned names deeply effected poets that are our primary concern that had the opportunity to publish poetry books between 1880-1895. Poets who were inspired by these poets, at times wrote nazires to poems of these poets and, at times abided to the world of poems of these poets and tried to create their own poem universes. In this study, the development process of Turkish poetry in a period which has been ignored by some sources, between 1880-1895 will be handled. First, the reason why and by whom this period is called the Ara Nesil and the list of Ara Nesil poets will be dwelled on. Then, the poetry understanding of the period in reference to published poetry books and poems will be elicited.

Keywords

Ara Nesil, Modern Turkish Poetry, Tanzimat Literature, Mutavassıtîn