Ontological metaphors in Attila İlhan's poems

Language; it is a living structure which is constantly changing, developing, versatile and which has a systematic order within itself. Concepts that correspond to the cognitive level in the human mind can change and expand at the semantic level depending on different variables. The effort to make sense and transfer in the language are also the source of the study area of semantics. Semantics transfers, epistemic and ontological conformities among words are linguistic features that outstand in gaining new meanings and increasing the power of expression. From this point of view, metaphors can be seen as a new interpretation effort. Metaphor is a figure of speech, according to the classical view, consisting of the Greek words "meta: beyond" and "pherin: to carry"; according to the contemporary metaphor view, it is an explanation of a concept with by using other concepts and a transfer among concepts. The depth of meaning that make up the poem can be recognised by adequately understanding the images used in the poem. Metaphors also show the feature of a tool to reach the source of the feelings, thoughts and facts that are at the base of the images. In this respect, metaphorical analyzes to be made in poetry analysis will make it easier to penetrate the meaning world of poetry, and it will also enable to see conceptual linguistic features in poetry texts. It is seen that the studies are generally done in classical style poetry interpretations or in a way that examines the connections based on the poet, mentality, image and poetry. In this study, the ontological metaphors in Attila İlhan's poems were tried to be determined, and the obtained metaphor samples were classified according to their source areas and ontological metaphor types. Attila İlhan, a socialist realist poet, has revealed an artistic discourse that highlights his individual sensitivity based on social themes in some of his poems. The metaphor examples obtained from five different poetry books belonging to the poet were examined in line with the contemporary metaphor theory/view put forward by Lakoff-Johson in his work titled "Metaphors/We Lived By". In the analysis, the relationship between the use of images that provide the depth of meaning in poetry and metaphors has been revealed, and the contribution of ontological metaphors in Attila İlhan's poems to the theme and meaning world of poetry has been tried to be recognised. Key Terms: Metaphor, ontological metaphor, image, Attila İlhan