THE PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY OF T.S. ELIOT'S CITY POEMS

T.S. Eliot's poems “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Preludes” and “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” may be read as examples of how the poet depicts kaleidoscopic portrayals of the city. In these poems, Eliot incorporates various walking personae to construct a multifaceted image of the city. This enables a spatial reading of the poems in which different layers of the city are depicted and a means in which a cartography of the city may be established. As such, London and other real or imaginary cities are described through fragments by these personae and their conversations and previous literary works accompany the urban descriptions. Thus by using such personae Eliot enables the reader to do the impossible, that is, to envision the city in one sitting. To this end, the personae in these poems not only describe the city by looking at it from a distance, but also by walking in the streets and becoming part of it, which allows the reader to view the city panoramically and from up close. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which memory, literature, and experience work hand in hand in the poem to portray these cities which include London not only as a metropolis made up of buildings and people, but also a means of constructing the soul of the city.

T.S. ELIOT'IN KENT ŞİİRLERİNE PSİKOCOĞRAFİK BİR YAKLAŞIM

T.S. Eliot'ın “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Preludes” ve “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” şiirlerinde kent sürekli değişen, farklı yönleriyle betimlenen bir imgedir. Eliot bu şiirlerinde kentte yürüyen bir şiir kişisi kullanarak farklı açılardan kenti okuyucunun zihninde yeniden oluşturmaktadır. Kullandığı bu kent imgesi Eliot'ın şiirlerinin mekansal yaklaşımlarla incelenebileceğini ve bu sayede kente dair edebi bir harita oluşturulabileceğini göstermektedir. Örneğin Londra gibi kentler ve başka kurgusal kentler parçalı imgelerle birleştirildiğinde kentin edebiyatı geçmişi ve çağdaşı birlikte barındırabilmektedir. Kent içerisinde yürüyerek gördüklerini betimleyen şiir kişisi kullandığında Eliot, bir oturuşta okuyucunun kenti zihninde bütünüyle canlandırmasını sağlayabilmektedir. Bu izlenimi verebilmek için şiir kişisi bir yandan kentin sokaklarında dolaşır, bir yandan şehrin panoramasını uzaktan seyre dalar. Makalede Eliot'ın şiirleri incelendiğinde kenti kent yapanın sadece binalar ve insanlar değil aynı zamanda bellek, edebiyat, ve deneyimlerin kentin kimliğini oluşturmada nasıl bir rol oynadığı tartışılacaktır.

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