Romanticism and romantic perception in tanzimat poetry

Some social, political scientific developments in the Enlightenment Age affects the entire world with their repercussions. The French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution play an important role in these developments and changes. Intelligence, deified with the Industrial Revolution, gradually turns into an eclipse of reason repelling grave and traditional beliefs, so, people begin to need new ideas and developments. Escape from the hegemonic, dominant superiority, unidirectional pressure of intelligence prepares a ground for the emergence of romanticism by pushing the spirit of the age towards heartfelt and traditional sensations. In the 18th century, the romanticism movement, beginning to emerge in the West as a reaction to classicism by attaching importance to emotions, spread over various geographies in a short span of time as it developed in diverse branches of art such as music, painting, and literature. Like Germany, England, France, Russia, Poland, Italy, and Spain, the Ottoman Empire becomes one of the countries caught in the wind of romanticisim. On the brink of collapse and disintegration, the Ottoman Empire attempts to find solutions to remedy its negative course in this period. However, unfortunately, lost lands, internal and external interventions, riots, invasions and the danger of the collapse of the state drag people into a great chaos. With its individual and social themes, Romanticism becomes a source of inspiration for the Ottoman artists being in a pessimist mood in the 19th century. Poets of Tanzimat Reform Period incorporate individual romanticism in their works by leaning towards nature, self and melancholy in addition to more traditional subjects such as love, death, and belief. And they deal with freedom, nation, sovereignty, right, justice, equality and laws with a brand new perception in order to bring Western ideas to life to awaken national consciousness. They also strengthen the social emphasis of romanticism with their heroic poems illuminating morality, social problems and orientation towards history. They make romanticism felt not only in the content of the poem but in its language, form and meter. Moreover, these poets formulate a new world for themselves by incorporating imagination, dream and irony in their works to pierce through the armor of reality. Keywords: Romanticism, Tanzimat, poetry, literature, nature, love, death, melancholy, perception of nature, homeland, nation, irony.