John Lydgate’in Ölüm Dansı’nda Ölümü İdeolojik Bir Aygıt Olarak Okumak

Abstract

Ölüm Dansı geleneği Orta Çağ sanatı ve edebiyatında on dördüncü yüzyıl Avrupa’sında Kara Ölümün bir sonucu olarak insanlara dünyevi zevklerin geçiciliği ve ölümün yakınlığını hatırlatmak amacıyla ortaya çıkmıştır. Ölüm Dansı şiirlerinde, genellikle kişileşmiş ölüm bireyleri bir dansa davet eder. Ölüm Dansı şiiri on beşinci yüzyılda İngiliz bir keşiş ve şair olan John Lydgate tarafından İngilizceye çevrilen, aslı Fransızca olan bir şiirdir. Ölüm Dansı geleneğinde yazılmış bir eser olarak, kişileştirilmiş ölüm ve toplumun farklı sosyal sınıflarından bireyler arasında geçen diyaloglarıyla Orta Çağ öğretici şiirinin bir örneğidir. Ölüm, cinsiyet, sosyal konum ve yaşlarını gözetmeksizin birçok günahkâr ve günahsız bireyi ölmeye davet eder. Orta Çağ insanlarına kendi fanilikleri ve günahkarlıklarını hatırlatan bu davete katılmak zorunludur ve Ölüm’ün yönetimi ve yetkisi altında gerçekleştirilir. Bu bağlamda, bu makalenin amacı şiirdeki Ölüm Dansı geleneğini izlemek ve şiirin tematik materyalinin hangi ölçüde Althusser’in ideolojik devlet aygıtları kavramıyla örtüştüğünü, şiirin dini öğreticiliğini ötesinde, Ölüm’ün başını çektiği ölülerin dansının Althusser’in dini ve kültürel ideolojik devlet aygıtlarına gönderme yaptığını ileri sürerek tartışmaktır.

Keywords

• John Lydgate
• Ölüm Dansı
• Ölüm Dansı Geleneği
• Ölüm
• Althusseryen İdeoloji

Reading Death as an Ideological Tool in John Lydgate’s Dance of Death

Abstract

The Danse Macabre tradition emerged in the medieval art and literature as a result of the Black Death in the fourteenth century Europe to remind people of the transience of the earthly pleasures and imminence of death. In the Danse Macabre poems, mostly the personification of death summons the individuals to a dance. Dance of Death is originally a French poem translated into English by the English monk and poet John Lydgate in the fifteenth century. As a work written in the Danse Macabre tradition, it is an example of medieval didactic poetry with its dialogues between the personified death and the individuals from different estates in the society. The Death invites various sinful or sinless individuals regardless of their sex, rank, and age to die. Attendance to this invitation reminding the medieval people of their own mortality and sinfulness is obligatory, and it is conducted under the governance and the authority of The Death. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to trace the Danse Macabre tradition in the poem, and discuss to what extent the poem’s thematic materials coincide with those of the Althusserian ideological state apparatuses, by asserting that, above its religious didacticism, the dance of the dead led by The Death in the poem alludes to the Althusserian religious and cultural ideological state apparatuses.

Keywords

• John Lydgate
• Dance of Death
• The Dance Macabre Tradition
• Death
• Althusserian Ideology

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