Open AccessRevolution and Modernity in Nazim Hikmet’s “The Epic of Sheikh Bedridden”
Author(s) -
Mahmood Rakan Ahmed
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
al-ustād̲
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2518-9263
pISSN - 0552-265X
DOI - 10.36473/ujhss.v58i4.1014
Subject(s) - modernity , poetry , oppression , literature , turkish , epic , power (physics) , politics , order (exchange) , philosophy , history , art , law , political science , epistemology , linguistics , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , economics
This paper aims to prove that the poem “The Epic of Sheikh Bedridden” by the first Turkish modernist poet Nazim Hikmet expresses a political unconscious of modernity by incarnating and adopting modernist, rebellious and revolutionary ideas in his poem in both form and content in order to subjugate repression and oppression. Throughout his didactic poem he urges his people for a better Turkey whose freedom of thought and expression and liberty are essential ideals. Hikmet’s proposal for a more tolerant and open Turkey becomes undeniable truth after a long history of contestation through the power of the words