REVISITING “ÂSIM” THROUGH THE METAPHOR OF FATHERS AND SONS

Published as a separate volume in 1924, “Âsım”, the sixth book of Mehmet Âkif Ersoy’s Safahat, has been one of the prominent works with significant repercussions in Turkish literature and history of thought, right from the day it appeared in the Sebîlürreşâd journal in 1919. At the very beginning of the poem, which is structured rather as a poetic theater play by drawing upon the dialogue technique, readers are familiarized with the list of characters (eşhâs-ı muhâvere), which consists of Hocazâde, Köse İmam, Âsım and Emin, respectively. Though an unusual artistic choice for its time, this is particularly interesting as it leaves readers with the impression that the work evokes the air of a theater play. To these four individuals we might add Nureddin Ağa, grandfather of Hocazâde, and Hoca Tahir Efendi, father of Hocazâde and mentor of Köse İmam, who are mentioned in the dialogues on various occasions and can be incorporated into the context by reason of the metaphor “fathers and sons”. A careful analysis of the characters quickly reveals that there exists a father-son and master-disciple relationship between each. Besides, some characters of the poem are actually real/living characters, while some are fictional/utopian, which makes the text all the more interesting. The poem idealizes real-life personages by ascribing them certain fictional characteristics, thereby transforming them into symbolic characters through secondary identities. Drawing upon the metaphor of “fathers and sons”, this paper attempts to interpret the protagonists of “Âsım”, the sixth book of Safahat, both on the basis of their own time and their historical characteristics.