FROM MASNAVI TO THEATRE: TWO STAGE PLAYS THAT DRAW UPON HÜSN Ü AŞK

Özet

Günümüzde artık her üretilen metnin önceki metinlerle etkileşimde olduğu kabul görmektedir. Jean Genette Palimpsests adlı çalışmasında metinler arasındaki daha bütüncül ve 'resmi' ilişkilerin çeşitli safhalarını inceler. Bu bağlamda Şeyh Galip'in, Mevlana'nın Mesnevi'sinden 'çaldığını' söylediği Hüsn ü Aşk adlı eseri ilginç bir örnek oluşturmaktadır. Bu makalede Hüsn ü Aşk'tan yola çıkan iki tiyatro oyununun Galip'in mesnevisi ile nasıl bir alışverişe girdiği Palimpsests'in kılavuzluğunda tartışılacaktır. Turan Oflazoğlu'nun Güzellik ile Aşk başlıklı manzum radyo oyunu Hüsn ü Aşk'ın olay örgüsünü takip eden, mesneviye oldukça sadık kalarak yazılmış ancak yine de hacim olarak yirmide bir oranında azaltılmış bir eserdir. Kenan Işık'ın Aşk hastası ise bir yandan Hüsn ü Aşk'tan yararlanmış, diğer yandan şairin diğer şiirlerinden ve hayat hikayesinden de ilham almıştır. Eser zamansal olarak günümüzde geçse de oyun içinde oyun tekniği ile Şeyh Galip'in zamanına da gidilir. Oflazoğlu ile Işık'ın eserlerini birlikte değerlendirdiğimizde her iki yazarın da Şeyh Galip'in eserindeki gerek uhrevi gerek dünyevi şekilde okunabilecek aşk hikayesinden yola çıktığını, şekilsel değişiklikler dışında kaynak metin ile önemli kavram ortaklıklarına gittiklerini ancak bunları günümüz insanının ilgisini çekecek şekilde uyarladıklarını görürüz. Her iki eser de çeşitli okumalara açıktır ancak nasıl okunursa okunsunlar -tasavvufi, Nietzsche'nin üst insan kavramı rehberliğinde ya da Bergson'un sezgicilik kuramı eşliğinde- tıpkı Hüsn ü Aşk gibi insanın olgunlaşma serüvenini anlatmaktadırlar

Abstract

Today it is taken for granted that every text produced exists in a state of interaction with every text that was written before it. Jean Genette, in his work Palimpsests, examines various dimensions of intertextual relations that are more ‘official’. In this context Şeyh Galip’s Hüsn ü Aşk - a work that he said was ‘stolen’ from Mevlana’s Masnavi constitutes a very interesting example. In this article, two plays that derive from Hüsn ü Aşk will be analyzed in terms of how they interact with Galip’s masnavi, using Palimpsests as a guide. Turan Oflazoğlu’s radio play Güzellik ile Aşk, described as an ‘allegorical stage poem’ follows the narrative and plot of Hüsn ü Aşk closely. It is mostly loyal to the masnavi but the text has been reduced to one twentieth the length of the hypotext. On the other hand, Kenan Işık’s Aşk Hastası, in addition to Hüsn ü Aşk, draws on the poet’s other poems and life story. The work takes place in present time, though the play also travels to Şeyh Galip’s time with dramatic techniques. When we examine Oflazoğlu and Işık’s works together we see that both authors have taken as their starting point the love story in Şeyh Galip’s work, which can be read as both ethereal and worldly. Despite some differences in form, both works have conceptual points in common with their hypotexts while at the same time adapting them so as to appeal to the modern reader. As a result, no matter how one reads the two works – whether from the point of view of Sufism, of Nietzsche’s concept of the overman, or of Bergson’s theory of intuitionism – each one tell the same story of man’s adventure towards maturity as Hüsn ü Aşk does Today it is taken for granted that every text produced exists in a state of interaction with every text that was written before it. Theorists such as Bakhtin, Barthes and Kristeva point out that every new text that is produced enters into an intertextual relationship with those that came before it. Jean Genette in his work Palimpsests, however, deals with the ‘sunnier’ side of intertextuality dubbed ‘hypertextuality’. (Genette, 1977, 9) Genette explains that, in using the term ‘hypertextuality’, his intent is to refer to any and all types of relationship which exist between a text B, which he calls the ‘hypertext’, and a previously written text A, which he identifies as the ‘hypotext’. This article will use Genette’s work as a guideline to examine one of the most important works of Classical Turkish poetry, Hüsn ü Aşk, and two hypertexts which enter into a ‘relatively holistic and official’ relationship with it and examine the choices which Turan Oflazoğlu and Kenan Işık have made in their plays that have an impact both on content and meaning. Here we will examine two works in their context as a resetting of the original text, making reference to the particular concepts mentioned above where necessary: Turan Oflazoğlu’s Güzellik ile Aşk (literally Beauty and Love; the title is a modern Turkish translation of the Ottoman Hüsn ü Aşk) and Kenan Işık’s Aşk hastası (Lovesick). Güzellik ile Aşk was written in 1970 as a radio show for Turkish Radio and Television’s radio drama generation (Coşkun, 2011, 35) and published as a book in 1986, while Aşk hastası is currently still being performed in theatres. The most obvious and unavoidable distinction between the hypotext on the one hand and Aşk hastası and Güzellik ile Aşk on the other is that the language of Hüsn ü Aşk has been simplified so as to appeal to the modern observer. A second noteworthy difference is in the size of the works. Güzellik ile Aşk is only 200 verses long, as opposed to Hüsn ü Aşk, which is composed of 2101 couplets. Yet despite this, Oflazoğlu’s work follows the storyline of the hypotext from beginning to end. It begins with the members of the ‘Sons of Love’ tribe, to which Beauty and Love belong, introducing themselves and ends with the two lovers finding one another. Oflazoğlu does not engage in any significant discussion of poetry-one of the main concerns of Hüsn ü Aşk. Aşk hastası on the other hand tells the story of Mehmet, a member of a modern day theatre troupe who plays the lead role in work about the life of Şeyh Galip, as he struggles to comprehend the meaning of love and life in prose. In this way, Işık takes the adventure of Hüsn and Aşk and situates it outside of time and space. Oflazoğlu does the same thing saying “… whatever country, whatever era you might live in you will recognize them.” (Oflazoğlu, 2010, 12) He mentions that there is a single human culture developing across the entire globe; therefore, all the artists of the world must try on an overarching human consciousness, and only then will a superconsciousness dawn upon our world, awakening human beings to universal citizenship. (Oflazoğlu, 2001, 136) The author’s appeal to universality though concepts such as ‘overarching human consciousness’ and ‘superconsciousness’ recall Nietzsche’s ‘overman’. Oflazoğlu believes that the topics discussed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which he translated into Turkish, are universal. In his authoritative work titled A Hunter of the Absolute: A. Turan Oflazoğlu (Bir Mutlak Avcısı A. Turan Oflazoğlu), Sezai Coşkun explains that ‘the primary origins of the author’s ideas’ were European and mystic thought more generally and Nietzsche more specifically. He then attempts to analyze the author’s relationship to Sufism in the context of these strains of thought. He states that, as Oflazoğlu’s two favorite poets, “the two big names in Sufi poetry, Yunus Emre and Şeyh Galip [are distinguished] not by their ‘Sufi characteristics’ but by artistic personalities in search of the absolute”. Of course, it would be absurd to think of Güzellik ile Aşk as an entirely Sufi work. However, in limiting the entirety of Oflazoğlu’s art to a ‘hunt for the absolute’ and the concept of the ‘overman’, Coşkun has neglected to compare the work in question to its hypotext. Furthermore, given that the author employs concept