RADICAL LANDSCAPES OF R. F. LANGLEY’S POETRY: A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF TO A NIGHTINGALE

Abstract

This paper aims to examine R. F. Langley’s poetry as an example of radical landscape poetry, which is characterized by the interplay between landscape and language in an open field of con/textual relationships, with a focus on his poem “To a Nightingale”. Langley’s poetry can be regarded as a Modernist compound of tradition and innovation, affirmation and negation, certainty and doubt, and the human and the non-human. Langley’s poetic landscape(s) or his artistic canvas is associated with the late-modernist writing of his time. In Langley’s poetry, the relationships between landscape/environment and humanity, the human and the non-human are depicted as mutually constructive. Situated between the romantic and the existentialist discourses, Langley’s poetry possesses a modernist, depersonalized, scientific, innovative, experimental and speculative approach to reality and language. “To a Nightingale” epitomizes the modernist indeterminacy of reality and language through the vertiginous vacillation of the speaker between alternatives of truth and expression in the checkerboard of existence, as well as through the disordered structure and shape of the poem, alternating between opposite poles, through the use of stylistic devices such as parataxis, juxtaposition, enjambment, parallelism, deviation, foregrounding and discoursal relations. 

Keywords

• R. F. Langley; “To a Nightingale”; radical landscape poetry; modernism; stylistics; existentialism

R. F. LANGLEY ŞİİRLERİNİN RADİKAL MANZARALARI: BÜLBÜLE ŞİİRİNİN BİÇEMBİLİMSEL İNCELEMESİ

Öz

Bu makalenin amacı R. F. Langley’nin şiirlerini, bağlamsal/metinsel ilişkilerin açık sahasında manzara-dil etkileşiminin belirlediği radikal manzara şiirinin bir örneği olarak ve “Bülbül’e” adlı şiiri odağında incelemektir. Langley’nin şiirleri gelenekle yeniliğin, olumlamayla olumsuzlamanın, kesinlikle şüphenin ve insanla insan olmayanın modernist bir bileşiğidir. Langley’nin şiirsel manzaraları ya da sanat tuvali zamanın geç-modernist yazılarıyla ilişkilendirilir. Langley’nin şiirlerinde manzara/çevre ile insanlık, insanla insan olmayan arasındaki ilişkiler birbirlerini karşılıklı olarak kurar. Romantik söylemle varoluşçu söylemin arasında yer alan Langley şiirleri modernist, kişisel olmayan, bilimsel, yenilikçi, deneysel ve kurgusal bir gerçeklik ve dil yaklaşımına sahiptir. “Bülbül’e” şiiri, gerçeklik ve dilin modernist belirsizliğini, şiirde konuşan kişinin varoluşun dama tahtasında doğruluk ve ifade seçenekleri arasında vertigovari sendelemesi yoluyla ve aynı zamanda şiirin zıt kutuplar arasında değişen, düzensiz yapısı ile şekli ve  “yanaşık sıralama” (parataxis), “yanyanalık”(juxtaposition), “artlama” (enjambment), “koşutluk” (parallelism), “sapma” (deviation), “önceleme” (foregrounding) ve söylemsel bağlantılar gibi biçembilimsel yöntemler aracılığıyla örnekler. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

• R. F. Langley; “To a Nightingale”; radikal manzara şiiri; modernizm; biçembilim; varoluşçuluk

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