ON WAR POETRY: WILFRED OWEN VS. MEHMET AKIF ERSOY

Yıl 2015, Cilt: 4 Sayı: 2, 30 - 36, 01.12.2015

Burcu Karadaş Can

Öz

 "War" means bargaining many innocent
lives away in an outrageous bloodbath for the benefit of God-knows-whom for the
ones who truly and closely have experienced it in the battlefield and it means
sacrificing a few with a just cause for the good of many for the ones who have
watched it in home fronts. These are the perspectives of English war poet
Wilfred Owen and Turkish war poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy respectively. Owen actively
participated in World War I (1914-1918) and witnessed the savagery and atrocity
of the war on the hot battle ground fighting for his life, which made him
realize the disparity between what is won and what is lost and question for
what cause they fight. On the other hand, Ersoy was a political and religious
figure during the Turkish Independence War (1919-1922), but he never actively
fought in a battle. Thus, his ideas about the war remained more idealistic and
hopeful about the future.

 Their ideas and beliefs are reflected in their
poems concerning the important war of their times. Wilfred Owen sarcastically
criticizes the false assumptions and empty promises that are given to the
soldiers on the battlefield in his poems such as "Dulce et Decorum
Est" and reflects the brutal and apathetic side of the war. Whereas, Ersoy
in his poems such as Çanakkale Şehitleri'ne (To the

Martyrs of Çanakkale) and
"Cenk Marşı" (Combat Anthem) encourages people to fight for their
nation and supports the idea of glorious death and divine cause which is the
very thing that Owen criticizes. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Wilfred Owen, war poetry

Kaynakça

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