Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s Poetry

This article studies the evolution of Melih Cevdet Anday’s poetic style with a particular emphasis on his use of imagery. Traditional accounts of Anday’s poetry have tended to call attention to the beginning of his poetic career as part of the Garip (Birinci Yeni) movement and eventual alignment wit...

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Main Author: Melih Levi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Istanbul University Press 2022-06-01
Series:İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Dergisi
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Online Access:https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/9C4CF0AAA88741FA901F4DB167BFB491
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author Melih Levi
author_facet Melih Levi
author_sort Melih Levi
collection DOAJ
description This article studies the evolution of Melih Cevdet Anday’s poetic style with a particular emphasis on his use of imagery. Traditional accounts of Anday’s poetry have tended to call attention to the beginning of his poetic career as part of the Garip (Birinci Yeni) movement and eventual alignment with the aesthetic sensibility of the İkinci Yeni. Recently, critics have complicated this picture by demonstrating continuities in Anday’s early and late poetic styles, as well as calling into question the categorization of Anday with the İkinci Yeni. This article builds on this recent criticism by demonstrating continuities and changes in Anday’s descriptive practices across the different stages of his poetic career. A thorough examination of Anday’s imagery requires assessment of the careful distance he maintained from the other imageoriented practices in the modern era. To that end, Anday’s linguistic and philosophical approach to imagery are analyzed, as well as the tenor of the relationship Anday establishes between language and objective reality. Finally, the centrality of Wallace Stevens’s influence on Anday’s poetic style needs to be emphasized, since both poets challenge dominant image-oriented trends in modern poetry. Thus, Stevens’s influence on Anday proves instructive for an analysis of the poet’s changing style within the modernist context. The article builds on existing scholarly comparisons of the two poets by analyzing Anday’s 1965 translations of Stevens. Finally, it offers a detailed analysis of the formal, linguistic, and descriptive aspects of Anday’s poem “İstasyon" to demonstrate the nature of the poet’s philosophical negotiations between language and reality.
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spelling doaj-art-cacf8bb34ee94b82a2d9c538a2adb0da2025-08-20T02:58:44ZengIstanbul University Pressİstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Dergisi2602-26482022-06-0162114316410.26650/TUDED2022-1073053123456Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s PoetryMelih Levi0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0485-0024Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, İstanbul, TürkiyeThis article studies the evolution of Melih Cevdet Anday’s poetic style with a particular emphasis on his use of imagery. Traditional accounts of Anday’s poetry have tended to call attention to the beginning of his poetic career as part of the Garip (Birinci Yeni) movement and eventual alignment with the aesthetic sensibility of the İkinci Yeni. Recently, critics have complicated this picture by demonstrating continuities in Anday’s early and late poetic styles, as well as calling into question the categorization of Anday with the İkinci Yeni. This article builds on this recent criticism by demonstrating continuities and changes in Anday’s descriptive practices across the different stages of his poetic career. A thorough examination of Anday’s imagery requires assessment of the careful distance he maintained from the other imageoriented practices in the modern era. To that end, Anday’s linguistic and philosophical approach to imagery are analyzed, as well as the tenor of the relationship Anday establishes between language and objective reality. Finally, the centrality of Wallace Stevens’s influence on Anday’s poetic style needs to be emphasized, since both poets challenge dominant image-oriented trends in modern poetry. Thus, Stevens’s influence on Anday proves instructive for an analysis of the poet’s changing style within the modernist context. The article builds on existing scholarly comparisons of the two poets by analyzing Anday’s 1965 translations of Stevens. Finally, it offers a detailed analysis of the formal, linguistic, and descriptive aspects of Anday’s poem “İstasyon" to demonstrate the nature of the poet’s philosophical negotiations between language and reality.https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/9C4CF0AAA88741FA901F4DB167BFB491melih cevdet andaypoetryimagerymodernismwallace stevens
spellingShingle Melih Levi
Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s Poetry
İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Türk Dili ve Edebiyatı Dergisi
melih cevdet anday
poetry
imagery
modernism
wallace stevens
title Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s Poetry
title_full Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s Poetry
title_fullStr Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s Poetry
title_full_unstemmed Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s Poetry
title_short Image and Responsiveness: Melih Cevdet Anday’s Poetry
title_sort image and responsiveness melih cevdet anday s poetry
topic melih cevdet anday
poetry
imagery
modernism
wallace stevens
url https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/9C4CF0AAA88741FA901F4DB167BFB491
work_keys_str_mv AT melihlevi imageandresponsivenessmelihcevdetandayspoetry