The traces of psychological trauma in Turkish poetry (1860-2020)

In this study, the traces of psychological trauma that appeared in Turkish poetry between 1860 and 2020 are examined. The symptoms of the traumatic mental condition of the poets were identified in the verses referred to as "post-traumatic" and composed during a period that ensued their having experienced a trauma. Thus, the objective here is to explore how the traumas experienced by the poets, induced mutations to their poetry. The specifics of the poets' traumatic pasts were looked into; information from prior sources underpinned by clinical conclusions, statements from others who knew them and their own works were all taken into consideration. The verses of sixty-two poets who germinated their work within the allotted time period spanning from 1860 to 2020 were examined to evaluate the impact of psychological trauma on image, sign, subject, object, person, time, space and narrator. This is illustrated by way of a figurative language. It has been postulated that the epicede genre is an aesthetic form that feeds on trauma in addition to the gothic and grotesque aesthetics, which have allegedly contributed to the development of the phenomena of trauma. Verses; of poets with traces of a traumatic past stemming from insecurities of belonging or of the lack there off; of twelve poet's grappling with "autonomy/identity/individualization,"; four poets steered by the problematiques of "mutual commitment/separation" and of "success/self-actualization"; seven poets aligning themselves to "survival" and lastly thirty struggling with "suicide" based on the psychological damage they experienced. Based on the evidence gathered, and deploying the literary trauma theory developed by Cathy Caruth, poems that displayed traumatic symptoms were examined. Focus is aimed on how poets who previously have had psychological problems and that are identified in relation to suicide, explore in their poetry, these conditions in a traumatic dimension.