Nalans (Jun 2021)
Romanticism vs Nationalism
Abstract
Mehmet Akif Ersoy witnesses the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of Turkey. He voluntarily takes part in the war of independence against Greece and supports Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He then uses his poetic voice to attack the Turkish nation's enemy and proclaim the new ideals promised by Ataturk and his friends. As a nationalist who cherishes the love and zeal for independence, Ersoy is torn by the ongoing invasion of the Ottoman Empire. Having heard about the Greek invasion of Bursa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire, Ersoy is mentally depressed. He takes a walk in the countryside to escape and hears the nightingale, yearning hopelessly for the rose. Aggravated by the bird's melancholy, he uses the nightingale as a poetic voice to reflect the trauma of the Turkish nation. John Keats, the English Romantic poet, on the other hand, has been deeply depressed about the death of his father, mother, and brothers. In particular, his brother's death of tuberculosis, following his mother's death, causes trauma and deep grief, and he is overcome by the fear of death. He sees the first signs of tuberculosis in himself, and his health is broken. Like Ersoy, he embodies his heartache and his mental depression in the voice of a nightingale, using it as a poetic voice to express his own trauma.
