MADELINE MILLER'IN KIRKE ADLI ESERİNİN EKO-DiLBİLİMSEL ANALİZİ: FARKLI VARLIK BİÇİMLERİ ARASINDAKİ İLİŞKİLERİN FİGÜRATİF KAVRAMSALLAŞTIRMALARLA YENİDEN İNŞASI

Abstract

Madeline Miller, 21. yüzyılın en ünlü "revizyonist mit yaratıcılarından" biridir. Miller'in ödüllü romanı Kirke (2019), mitolojik hikayelerin yeniden gözden geçirilip, mitolojik eril tarihi kadın bakış açısıyla yeniden yaratma girişimidir. Angela Carter ve Margaret Atwood gibi; Madeline Miller, var olan hikayeleri feminist bir bakış açısıyla yeniden yazarak edebi kanonu oluşturan fallogosantrik anlatıları yapıbozuma uğratmayı amaçlar. Bunu yapmak için, erkek yazar tarafından kaleme alınan The Odyssey'de küçük bir karakter olarak görülmesine karşın korku salan bir büyücü olan Kirke'nin efsanesini, Kirke'nin bakış açısından yeniden yazmıştır. Miller ne yapmayı amaçladığını şöyle açıklamaktadır: "Hikayenin merkezinde onun olmasını istedim. Bir kadının hayatı hakkında destansı bir hikaye olmasını istedim. Aşil ve Odysseus gibi kahramanların hikayelerinde bulunan, tüm maceraların ve karakter gelişiminin, hatalarının, erdemlerinin, onda toplanmasını istedim" (Nicolau, 2018, s. 7). Bu anlamda Kirke bir "kadın destanı" veya "mitografik bir üstkurmaca" olarak tanımlanabilir (Nunes, 2014, s. 231–232). Miller, bakış açısıyla birlikte, erkek-merkezli destanlarda yer alan egemen ideolojileri de değiştirmiş ve ekolojik bir anlayışla erkek merkezciliği ve hiyerarşik dünya görüşünü alt üst etmiştir. Bu çalışma, Miller'ın evrendeki tür içi ve türler arası ilişkilere dair yeni bir anlayışı teşvik etmek için yararlandığı yaratıcı dil kullanımına vurgu yapacaktır. Bu makale Miller'ın dil seçimlerini eko-dilbilimsel bir yaklaşımla incelemeyi, özellikle onun teşbihleri kullanma biçimine odaklanarak, benzetme sanatını ne sıklıkta kullandığını ve Miller’ın sistematik seçimlerinin ne gibi söylemsel etkiler yarattığını ve romanda kullanılan teşbihlerin hangi ideolojiyi yansıttıklarını bulmayı amaçlamaktadır. Kirke romanında yazarın kullandığı benzetme sanatlarına dair yapılan eko-dilbilimsel inceleme, Miller'ın ekosofik bilgelik olarak nitelendirilebilecek vizyonunu yansıtmak için ekolojiye duyarlı dili ve düşünceyi ustaca bir araya getirdiğini ortaya koymaktadır.

Keywords

• Eko-dilbilim
• Feminist revizyonizm
• Ekoeleştiri
• Kirke
• Ekosofik bilgelik

AN ECOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF CIRCE BY MADELINE MILLER: RECONSTRUCTING THE RELATIONS AMONG DIFFERENT FORMS OF BEINGS THROUGH FIGURATIVE RECONCEPTUALIZATIONS

Abstract

Madeline Miller is one of the most renowned "revisionist mythmakers" in the 21st century. Miller's prize-winning novel Circe (2019) is an attempt to recreate the histories of the mythological past in the revised versions of herstories. Madeline Miller intends to deconstruct the phallogocentrict narrations which have established the literary canon by recreating the same stories from a feminist perspective. To do so, she rewrites the myth of Circe who is a formidable sorceress and is treated as a minor character in the male-authored The Odyssey. Miller explains what she aims to do as follows: "I wanted her to be the center of the story. I wanted it to be an epic story about a woman's life. And for her to have all the attention and all the adventures and the growth, the errors,the virtues,that heroes like Achilles and Odysseus have in their stories" (Nicolau, 2018, p. 7). In this sense Circe can be described as a "female epic" or a "mythographic metafiction" (Nunes, 2014, pp. 231-232). Miller, along with the perspective, changed the dominant ideologies embedded in man-centered epics and she subverted androcentrism and a hierarchical view of the world with her ecological insight. This article will place the emphasis on Miller's creative use of language through which she promotes a novel understanding of intra and inter-specific relations in the universe. Thus, it will examine Miller's stylistic choices with an ecolinguistic approach by focusing specifically on her use of similes to find out why she employs this figure of speech with high frequency and what discursive effects she has created and what ideological implications her use of similes offer. The ecolinguistic examination of how and why she employs the similes in Circe reveals that Miller skillfully brings together an ecologically conscious language and thought to reflect her vision which can be characterized as ecosophic wisdom.

Keywords

• Ecolinguistics
• Feminist revisionism
• Ecocriticism
• Circe
• Ecosophic wisdom.

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