Christopher Isherwood - Tek Başına Bir Adam: Hayatın sonbaharında yaratılan bir sanat eseri

Öz

Edebiyat kariyerine, kurgusunu kişisel gerçekler ve deneyimlerle besleyen bir yazar olarak başlayan Christopher Isherwood'un romanlarının çoğu, bir kimlik oluşturmaya ve kendini yalnızca bir yetişkin olarak değil, aynı zamanda bir yazar olarak keşfetmeye odaklanır. Hayatının farklı evrelerini kurguyla anlattığı için, geç ergenlik döneminden, genç ve orta yetişkinliğe kademeli geçişi açıkça gözlemlenebilen eşsiz yazarlardan biridir. “Hayatının sonbaharını” yansıtan, eleştirmenlerce beğenilen romanı Tek Başına Bir Adam, Isherwood’un yaşlanma ve ölüm kaygısıyla yüzleşmesinin şiirsel bir tasviridir. 1960'ların başlarında yazılan, hayat arkadaşı Don Bachardy ile fırtınalı ilişkisi, yakın iki arkadaşının (Charles Laughton ve Aldous Huxley) kanserle mücadelesi ve kendi sağlık sorunları, kesinlikle Tek Başına Bir Adam'ın oluşumuna katkı sağlamıştır bu çalışmanın amacı Isherwood’un orta yaş krizinin, bu romanı kurgularken yaratıcılığını nasıl beslediğini ortaya çıkarmaktır. Teorik olarak bu çalışma, edebi gerontolojiden ve sosyal gerontolojinin teorik çerçevesini oluşturan 'Yaşam Boyu Perspektifi'nden yararlanmaktadır. Doğrudan kendi deneyimlerinden söz eden Isherwood gibi yazarların eserlerini incelemek, edebiyat ve gerontolojinin nasıl kesiştiğini ortaya koymaktadır. Yardımcı bir disiplin olarak kurgunun, yaşlanan bireylerin iç dünyasının kilidini açabilecek ve onları anlamaya yardımcı olabilecek bir anahtar olduğu açıktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Christopher Isherwood
• Tek Başına Bir Adam
• yaşlanmak
• edebi gerontoloji

Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man: A work of art produced in the afternoon of an author’s life

Abstract

Beginning his early literary career as an author who nurtured his fiction with personal facts and experiences, many of Christopher Isherwood’s novels focus on constructing an identity and discovering himself not only as an adult but also as an author. He is one of those unique authors whose gradual transformation from late adolescence to young and middle adulthood can be clearly observed since he portrays different stages of his life in fiction. His critically acclaimed novel A Single Man, which reflects “the afternoon of his life;” is a poetic portrayal of Isherwood’s confrontation with ageing and death anxiety. Written during the early 1960s, stormy relationship with his partner Don Bachardy, the fight against cancer of two of his close friends’ (Charles Laughton and Aldous Huxley) and his own health problems surely contributed the formation of A Single Man. The purpose of this study is to unveil how Isherwood’s midlife crisis nurtured his creativity in producing this work of fiction. From a theoretical point of view, this paper, draws from literary gerontology and ‘the Lifecourse Perspective’ which is a theoretical framework in social gerontology. Examining the works of authors like Isherwood, who speaks directly from his own experience, reveals how literature and gerontology intersect. It is clear that as an aiding discipline, fiction provides a key which can unlock the inner world of ageing individuals and help in understanding them.

Keywords

• Christopher Isherwood
• A Single Man
• ageing
• literary gerontology

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