Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları

Abstract

In order to reach tidy conclusions about the poets' understanding of poetry, there is an obligation to refer to their poetic texts. Mehmet Akif Ersoy, who has an important place in Turkish literature with his seven-volume poetry corpus titled Safahat, most of which was published in the first quarter of the 20th century, is a poet who also thought about the issues of poetry and literature and produced texts. It is seen that Mehmet Akif made some criticisms to divan poetry in his poetic texts, questioned the understandings of art is for art and art is for society, and emphasized the second of these, and focused on the problem of reality. In this article, it will be tried to reach conclusions about Mehmet Akif’s understanding of poetry by going through these issues. Of course, these are not issues that started and ended with Mehmet Akif. In Western literature, there is a large literature on the problem of reality and the dilemma of whether art is for art or for society. In addition, these issues have been discussed at length among Turkish poets and writers since the Tanzimat period. In this study, in the light of all these data, the continuity relationship between Mehmet Akif’s understanding of literature in the Tanzimat period and especially with Namık Kemal will be emphasized.