TO EXAMINE THE ROLE OF THE READER IN MEANING PRODUCTION: YEŞİL GECE IN THE CONTEXT OF RECEPTION AESTHETICS

Reşat Nuri Güntekin’s Yeşil Gece (1928) has been seen as an interesting research text from past to present due to its identity of “polemic novel”. In time, miscellaneous reading/interpretation forms that sometimes resemble each other and sometimes differ from each other at the degree of polarization have arisen as a result of the dynamic relation established between the reader/critic and the text, and based on the principle of reciprocal interaction. As is known, the statements of the authors about their books, blurbs of publishers and period’s historical, socio-cultural and ideological ground that is the feeder/determiner of the reader’s intellectual background are among the fundamental factors affecting reader’s reception. In this study, these factors shaping reception process will be analyzed on Yeşil Gece and the chronological reception map of the novel will be extracted through various texts selected as sample. In this context, by revealing the reception forms of critics who have different world views from Nahid Sırrı Örik to Mehmet Kaplan, from Fethi Naci to Cahit Kavcar, and in some way the criticism of criticism will be performed. The basic theoretical basis of the study will be Reception Theory, led by Hans Robert Jauss, Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish.