On the Book (Nâzım Hikmet and the Poetics of Anti-Colonialism)
Nâzım Hikmet and the Poetics of Anti-Colonialism is the reviewed and slightly-altered version of my M.A. thesis, which I wrote under the supervision of Talât S. Halman and Hilmi Yavuz in the Turkish Literature Department of Bilkent University. This book focuses on the relations between genre, form and content in the anti-colonialist works of the world-renowned communist poet Nâzım Hikmet (1902-1963).
The point of departure for the thesis, and therefore for the book was a simple question: Why didn't Nâzım Hikmet write these three books, i.e. Gioconda and Si-Ya-U (1929), Why Did Benerjee Kill Himself? (1932) and Letters to Taranta-Babu (1935) within the confines of a well-established, conventional literary genre, but chose to incorporate into them the features of a variety of genres? And why did he insist that these books, written mainly in verse, were novels? As these questions buzzed round my head, it suddenly struck me that Mikhail Bakhtin, the great Soviet literary theorist who was the contemporary of Nâzım Hikmet, had indeed theorized what Nâzım Hikmet did in his works. Bakhtin had written that the rise of the novel, which he defined by its all-inclusiveness, flexibility and polyphony, induced major changes in all literary genres, including poetry. This literary phenomenon, which Bakhtin termed "novelization," denoted the process whereby literary genres became more heterogenious, flexible and polyphonic like the novel. This, in turn, made it possible for these genres to accommodate the many voices of a society and represent it in all its complexities and conflicts.
In my book, I tried to look at Gioconda and Si-Ya-U (1929), Why Did Benerjee Kill Himself? (1932) and Letters to Taranta-Babu (1935) from this theoretical perspective in order to find out whether and to what extent the structural irregularity of these works, or their "novelization" as Bakhtin put it, fashioned the representation of the subject matter. In the process, I saw that novelization, as observed in these books on colonialism, enabled the representation of the issue from the perspective of historical materialism. In compliance with his ideology, Nâzım Hikmet viewed colonialism as a class struggle between the colonizer (i.e. European upper classes) and the colonized (i.e. native people of the colonies, who were seen and treated by the colonizers as slaves or "inferior" people who were destined and obliged to serve the "superior" race as a labour force). And in my view, he gave the the colonizer and the colonized a voice to express their world views by novelizing his poems. Secondly, I claim that humor, which is also one of the distinct features of novelized genres as it challenges and relativizes the homophony imposed by dominant ideologies, leads to a revolution on the symbolic level in Nâzım Hikmet's anti-colonialist works. In these works, the discourse of the oppressed people of the colonies is seen to outdo the discourse of their colonizers because the colonized have the power of humor, which the "serious" and "ambitious" colonizers lack.
I believe that in this manner, Nâzım Hikmet wrote an alternative history of colonization, where peoples who didn't have a voice or history in the eyes of the colonizers found a voice to speak for themselves and against their oppressors. I have tried to elaborate on this alternative history in my book. I am planning to translate my book into English and publish it in the long term. But at the moment, I thought providing a translation of the Table of Contents would give a general idea about the book.
Öykü (Terzioğlu) Özer
Table of Contents
Foreword – Hilmi Yavuz
Introduction and Acknowledgements
Chapter One: A New “Reading Contract”
A. Shifting Balances Between Poetry, Prose and Novel in the History of Literature
1. “In the Beginning Was Poetry"
2. Western Poetry at the Crossroads with the Rise of the Novel
3. Turkish Poetry at the Crossroads
B. Nâzım Hikmet's Poems Claiming to be Prose and Novels
Chapter Two: Novelization and Polyphony
A. "Novel" and "Novelization" According to Mikhail Bakhtin
B. The First Stage of Novelization and Polyphony in the Poetry of Nâzım Hikmet: 835 Lines
1. Free verse as a Bridge Between Prose and Poetry in terms of Rhythmic Flexibility
2. The Opening Up of Poetry Towards Other "Lyrical I"s
C. Polyphony in Nâzım Hikmet’s Novelized Poems
1. Limited Novelization in Gioconda and Si-Ya-U: Voices and Forms "Obeying" the Author
2. Characters and Discourses "Opposing" the Author in Why Did Benerjee Kill Himself?
3. Clashing of Fascist and Socialist Truths in Letters to Taranta-Babu
Chapter Three: Novelization and Humor
A. The Concept of “Ideology” and the Subversion of the Dominant Ideology of the Middle Ages in the Novels of François Rabelais
B. Subversion of the Colonialist Discourse in Nâzım Hikmet’s Novelized Poems
1. Profanization of the "Sacredness" of Art in Gioconda and Si-Ya-U
2. Debunking of Racism and Colonialism in Why Did Benerjee Kill Himself?
3. Divesting Fascism of its Pseudo-Sanctity in Letters to Taranta-Babu
Conclusion: An Anternative Historical Narrative
Articles on the Book (in Turkish)
Hilmi Yavuz. "Nazım Hikmet ve Şiirin 'Romanlaşması' ". Zaman. 21 Ekim 2009.
Doğan Hızlan. "Şiirin Yumuşak Sesi". Hürriyet. 18 Ekim 2009.
"Yeni Çıkanlar". Radikal Kitap. 16 Ekim 2009. Osman Mazlum.
"Öykü Terzioğlu". Ekşisözlük. 16 Ekim 2009.
"Göze Çarpanlar". Birgün. 25 Ekim 2009.
"Bilkent PH.D Student Published on Nâzım Hikmet". Bilkent News. Vol:16,No:7. 27 Ekim 2009.
Nilay Özer. "Şiir Eleştirisine Taze Kan". Radikal Kitap. 13 Kasım 2009.
Hilal Aydın. "Alternatif Bir Nâzım Okuması". Evrensel Kültür 216 (Aralık 2009): 18-19.
R. Aslıhan Aksoy Sheridan. "Nâzım Hikmet Çalışmalarına Yeni Bir Soluk". Kanat 31 (Güz 2009): 9.
Deniz Çerşil. "Egemen Söylemin Romanlaşan Şiirde Mizah Yoluyla Yıkılışı". Yarınlar 25 (Aralık 2009).
Discussions and Book Signings
15 Kasım 2009, Kurgu Culture Center, Ankara
23 Ocak 2009, Nâzım Hikmet Culture Center, Ankara
