Conservative Canon in Teaching Literature / Edebiyat Öğretiminde Muhafazakâr Kanon

Abstract

In literature, canon is formed by mentioning authors and poets who meet the criteria specified by authorities together and including others in this group on condition that they resemble authors and poets in question. Canon in literature teaching paves the way for society’s perception of literature to be developed through a political sieve. This study aims to investigate which authors and poets are mentioned most frequently in the Turkish language and literature curricula and observed whether a canon of these poets and authors has been formed. In this study, document analysis method which is one of the qualitative research methods is used. Accordingly, in total seven language and literature curricula published after the proclamation of Republic in Turkey were examined. It was found that no author and poet names were mentioned in the curricula published before 1950. It was observed that politically and artistically traditionalist and conservative authors and poets were mentioned in the language and literature curricula instead of those who were on the innovative side. It was seen at the end of the study that the most mentioned authors and poets in the language and literature curricula in Turkey are Yahya Kemal Beyatlı (20), Mehmet Akif Ersoy (17) ve Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (16) Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (15), Ahmet Haşim (15), Namık Kemal (13), Yunus Emre (11) and Peyami Safa (10) respectively. These authors and poets are artistically or politically conservative or from the pre-Republican era.

Keywords

• canon
• conservatism
• conservative canon
• teaching language and literature