A psychoanalytic approach to the servet-i Fünun novel

ABSTRACT The Servet-i Fünun period draws attention as a phase in Turkish literature in which the orientation towards the inner world of the individual becomes prominent and psychological analyses come to the fore. The themes such as the conflict between dream and reality, loneliness, despair, fear, escape and the desire for death in the novels of this period exhibit a structure that is quite suitable for analysis in line with the data of psychoanalytic literary theory. The psychoanalytic theory, founded by Sigmund Freud, analyzes the conscious and unconscious structure of the individual, childhood experiences and repressed emotions. Psychoanalysis, which also allows the psychological structure of heroes in literary works to be analyzed, turns into a theory applied in literary criticism over time. Psychoanalytic literary theory tries to understand literary texts through the heroes psychological world and unconscious processes. This study aims to analyze Servet-i Fünun novels dealing with themes such as the destruction of individual dreams, forbidden love, guilt and sexual repression, moral collapse and fragmentation of the self, and inner alienation in the light of the concepts of psychoanalytic literary theory. Halit Ziya's Mai and Siyah, Aşk-ı Memnu, Kırık Hayatlar (Broken Lives), Mehmet Rauf's Eylül (September) and Hüseyin Cahit's Hayal İçinde (Inside the Dream), which were written between 1896-1901 covering the Servet-i Fünun period, constitute the basis of this study. In this study, these novels are analyzed within the framework of psychoanalytic theory; the reflections of the individual's inner conflicts, repressed desires and spiritual collapse in the texts are analyzed, and it is concluded that Servet-i Fünun literature is a period that opens to in-depth psychoanalytic analysis of the individual. This analysis reveals that the novels of Servet-i Fünun reflect the repressed desires, inner conflicts and psychological dissolution of the individual on an aesthetic plane, and in this way, by bringing the psychological depth of the individual to literature, it pioneered the form of narration towards the inner world in the Turkish novel. Keywords: Servet-i Fünun, novel, psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic literary theory.