SUSTURULMUŞUN GÜÇLÜ SESİ: VİKTORYEN SAPPHO (SAFO)’NUN EDEBİ RESMİ

Öz

Kendilerini yazı yoluyla ifade edebilecek kadar hür irade ve şansa sahip olmayan 19. yüzyıl İngiliz kadınları akademik çalışma alanlarında her zaman ilgi odağı olmuşlardır. “Edebiyat kadını ilgilendiren bir mesele değildir ve olamazda” mantığından yola çıkılarak bu alanın kapıları kadın yazarlara kilitli tutulmuştur. Bugünün okurları, bu düşüncenin Viktoryen saray şairi Robert Southey tarafından Charlotte Brontë’ye yazılmış bir mektupta iddia edildiğine inanmakta zorluk yaşamaktadırlar. Özellikle şiir gibi kutsal bir emel taşıyan edebi alanlar, sadece erkeklere özgü ciddi bir meslek olarak görülmekteydi. Öyleyse kadınlardan “edebi resim” olarak ta adlandırılan şiir sanatına ses getirmeleri nasıl beklenebilirdi? Mevcut çalışma, metin analizi kullanarak Emily Brontë’nin şiir alanındaki becerisini inceleyerek bu alandaki “Judith Shakespeare”leri ortaya çıkarmayı amaçlamaktadır. O, Angel in the House (Evdeki Melek) imajına ve kadınlara karşı tüm önyargılara rağmen güçlü sesini duyurabilmeyi başarmıştır. Janet Gezari tarafından antik Yunan lirik şairi Sappho (Safo)’ya benzetilen Emily Brontë imajı protesto amacı gütmeksizin yaşadığı 19. yüzyıl papaz evindeki hoş sessizliğe ses getirme amacı yürütmektedir. Günümüz eleştirmenleri Brontë’nin “hakiki şiirdeki saf haykırışı” karşısında hayrete düşmüşlerdir; bu çalışma ise erkek egemen bir dünyadan gelen Brontë’nin şiir becerisinde ki emsalsiz duruşunu, hatta erkek çağdaşlarından bile üstün oluşunu gösterebilmeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Emily Brontë
• Şiir
• 19. Yüzyıl kadın yazarlar

THE MIGHTY VOICE of the SILENCED: THE VICTORIAN SAPPHO’S LITERARY PAINTING

Öz

Having no free will and chance to express themselves through writing, women in the nineteenth-century have always been a study of interest in the academic field. Women writers were locked out of mainstream literature, for “literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be." Today’s readers find it hard to believe that it was claimed by the Victorian poet laureate Robert Southey in his letter to Charlotte Brontë. The literary field, especially poetry, which has always been a holy occupation, was considered as a serious career for the male only. So how women were expected to bring voice to their literary paintings? Through text analysis, this paper aims to seek the “Judith Shakespeares” in the field of poetry through an analysis of Emily Brontë’s poetry skills. It was she, who, despite the long held Angel in the House image, had her mighty voice heard regardless all the prejudices against women writers. Likened to the Greek Sappho by Janet Gezari, the image of Emily Brontë is carried out not as a protesting one but as bringing voice to the pleasing silence of the nineteenth-century parsonage where she lived. Modern-day critics are surprised by her “pure cry of genuine poetry” and this paper aims to show how unique Brontë’s poetry skills in a male-dominated world are, surpassing even those of her male-contemporaries.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Emily Brontë
• Poetry
• 19th-century women writers

Kaynakça

1. Gezari, J., (2007) Last Things: Emily Brontë’s Poems, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Gilbert, S. M. - Gubar, S., (2000), The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, USA: Yale Nota Bene.
3. Inman, L., (2014) The Poetic World of Emily Bronte: Poems from the Author of Wuthering Heights, Sussex: Sussex Academic Press.
4. Jenner, S., (2010), Identity and the Victorian Woman Poet: Working in and Against the Poetess Tradition, Published Master’s Thesis, UK: The University of Birmingham.
5. Mason, E., (2003), “Some God of Wild Enthusiast’s Dreams: Emily Brontë’s Religious Enthusiasm”, Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 31, No. 1, Victorian Religion, pp. 263-277.
6. Matthew, B., (2013), The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Poetry, Oxford: OUP.
7. Mermin, D., (1999), “Victorian Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian: Gender and Genre”, 1830-1900, Review, Victorian Poetry, Vol. 37, No. 1.
8. Peeck-O’Toole, M., (1988), Aspects of Lyric in the Poetry of Emily Brontë, Netherlands: Rodopi.

9. Starzyk, L. J., (1972), “Emily Brontë: Poetry in a Mingled Tone”, Criticism, Vol. 14, No. 2, Wayne State University Press, pp. 119-136.
10. Woolf, V., (2005), A Room of One’s Own, New York: Harcourt Inc.
11. Woolf, V., (2003), Women and Writing: Remarkable Pieces on the Writing Life of Women, London: A Harvest Book.
12. Zlotnick, S., (1991), ““A Thousand Times I’d be a Factory Girl”: Dialect’ Domesticity, and Working-Class Women’s Poetry in Victorian Britain”, Victorian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1, Autumn, pp. 7-27.
13. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/74487-lines-i-die-but-when-the-graveshall-press-the, (13.12.2015).
14. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/emily-bronte#poet, (12.12.2015).
15. http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/emily-bronte-poetry.php#coward, (28.12.2015).
16. http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/emily-bronte-poetry.php#remembrance, (21.12.2015).
17. Lib.ugent.be/fulltxt/RUG01/001/366/145/RUG01- 001366145_2010_0001_AC.pdf (10.12.2015).