Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Turkbilig, cilt.2024, sa.47, ss.312-327, 2024 (Scopus)
In Turkish literature, some works are sometimes discussed within the context of imitation and plagiarism. One of said poems is Tevfik Fikret’s “Hân-ı Yağma”. It is true that Turkish poetry was first influenced by Persian literature and then by Western sources after Tanzimat. However, all these debates on imitation-plagiarism-stolen works are not independent from the debate on originality in art. The individuality and originality of art is a relatively modern concept, because art is something that is mostly produced within a tradition, and imitation, inspiration and master-apprentice relationships are part of it. Every artist is influenced by the things around them, by the artists and works of art they interact with, by the paradigms of their own age; however, the important thing is to use these influences to build something that did not exist before. Classical Turkish literature is full of examples of this, and tradition was built entirely on a common ideology and images. Likewise, humanist and neoclassical art was based on the imitation of antiquity, of the old masters, and this was even considered a sine qua non for "true art". Originality was a quest that became more prominent with modernism. Quoted or imitated qualities have different functions in different cultures and traditions. Hân-ı Yağma is inspired by Joyeuse Vie and Ruy Blas's tirade, but the poem it constructs with this material expresses a new and radical aKitude within Turkish poetry. Hugo’s, Baudelaire's, Mallarmé's imagery is often imitated in Turkish literature, but these materials have reached a new composition in the new poetic tradition into which it has entered. The chain of inspiration cannot ever be presented objectively, and each text is more or less intertextual. For this reason, the text should be analysed in itself that is in light of what it has created with the materials of its interactions, inspirations or re-writings. “Hân-ı Yağma” has a value that transcends the imitated elements.