A Phenomenological Interpretation of Tanpınar’s No-tion of Temporality in 'Neither am I Inside Time' and Gerontranscendence

Özet

In this article, we will interpret Tanpınar’s poem, “Neither am I in-side Time”, from an existential-phenomenological perspective. We will discuss Ali Akay’s reading of the importance of virtual time in Tanpınar’s works, and contest his claim that Tanpınar’s notion of temporality is non-phenomenological. A phenomenological approach in interpreting the poem provides us with a rich and inspiring reading of the core role of temporality in Tanpınar’s art. We maintain the argument that Tanpınar’s fascination with temporality can be read with a view to Heideggerian attitude of temporality which is a possibility of transcending-as-such. In Tanpınar, temporality is de-picted as a threshold experience promising a possibility to transcend the unity of being and understanding that is an example of gerotranscendence. This pa-per will illustrate its argument with an example of Tanpınar’s character Hayri, who is an elderly wanderer living through the gerotranscendence as a state of spectating existence.