Osmanlı modernleşmesinin ortaya çıkardığı hoşnutsuzluğun altında yatan en önemli etken iki farklı medeniyet arasında önyargı ve savaşa dayalı mücadele üzerinden tanımlanan bir ilişki kurulmasıdır. Bu durum kuşatıcı ve derinlikli bir yenileşme programının ortaya koyulmasını zorlaştırmış, gelenek ve yenilik arasında yaşanan çatışmalarla şekillenen düalist bir zihniyetin ortaya çıkmasına sebep olmuştur. Şairin değişen sesi sadece edebî eserlerde yaşanan bir farklılaşmayı değil aynı zamanda devrin ruhunda meydana gelen duygusal ve düşünsel dönüşümü yansıtan veriler sunar. Tanzimat devri poetik metinlerine de yansıyan Osmanlı modernleşmesinin zihniyet dünyası şiirlerdeki tematik değişimden hareketle izah edilebilir. Tanzimat şairi, metinlerinde, Modernizmin gelenek ve kutsalla keskin çatışmalar yaşadığı alanlardan biri olan akıl algısını, tasavvufun akıl yorumu ile pozitivizmin modern akıl anlayışını farklı şekillerde buluşturur. Aklı kutsayan şairlerin yanı sıra aklın araçsallığını sorgulayan ve akıldan mustarip olan şairler Batılılaşmanın sebep olduğu ikilemlerin mahiyeti ve sebeplerinin anlaşılması konusunda şiir metinlerinden hareketle Osmanlı modernleşmesinin akıl konusundaki yaklaşımını ortaya koyarlar. Tematik değişim içinde özellikle akıl konusunun seçilmesinin sebebi, aklı temel güç olarak gören modernizmin Tanzimat devrinde öngörülen akılcı toplum modelinin temellerini hangi dinamikler üzerine inşa ettiğini ortaya koyabilmektir. Bu tespitleri göz önünde bulundurarak Tanzimat devri şiirlerine akıl teması bağlamında metin ve yazar odaklı bakılan bu çalışma ile modernleşme tarihimizin düşünsel zeminine dair değerlendirmeler yapılması amaçlanmıştır

Introduction: Ottoman modernization, which founds its theoretical and intellectual framework upon the encounter of two different civilizations, achieves a special dimension in the Tanzimat Reform Era with literary modernization. In this era, while the understanding of traditional literature was changing, the attitude of littérateurs towards social problems exhibited differences. Artist intellectuals, while creating literary works, interpreted the social reflections of modernization with designation, criticism and solution recommendations. Particularly, this situation, observed in examples of the Turkish poetry of Tanzimat Reform Era, points out the intellectual dynamics as well as the thematic change in poetry. Objective of the Study: Ottoman modernization, which gathered momentum with the Tanzimat Reform Era, is a project adopted as the emancipation formula for a disintegrating and dissolving state. Therefore, the effects of the modernization on the Ottoman cultural life, which is built on a traditional structure, manifest itself through conflicts. This study aims to establish the relationship of the era’s poet with modernization and the traces of Western thought that is influential on the emergence of the modern Turkish literature, within the scope of Tanzimat Reform Era poetry. Based on poetry, this study evaluates at which level Turkish literature was influenced by reason, as the keyword of modernism, and positivism that adopts reasoning as the fundamental strength; and at which points the traditional perception of reason, which resides on the sufist understanding, could not agree with positivist reasoning. It is as well in the scope of the study to discuss that the change in the perception of reason is not only limited to the themes reflected within poetry, but also how spiritual and metaphysical powers, assumed to accompany reason by tradition, were questioned in the modernization process. The approach of the Ottoman intellectual on reason, which adopts the view to keep up with the world and to follow the developments in the West, would additionally present the idea behind the dualist and eclectic structure that emerged in the Tanzimat Reform Era. This study, which sheds light on an important stage of the history of Turkish modernization, aims to evaluate the intellectual and philosophical tic texts. Methodology: This study, originating from a certain period of Turkish literature, adopts the methodological approach of criticism towards the artist, while providing a different perspective on modernization, which is regarded as a shared topic in literature and sociology. This article, which aims to theorize on samples that are derived from literary texts residing on different disciplines such as history and sociology, practices upon the terminology of diverse areas of social sciences as well as literature.Discussion: Comprehending the place of perception of reason in Turkish world of thought and the fundamentals on which the discourses reside would facilitate the cognizance of the period of intellectual history until the Tanzimat Reform Era. Thus, it would be interesting to observe the fallacy of the Tanzimat Reform Era poet in considering reason as a tool or consecrating the positivist mind. As supported with examples from the Eastern and Western world, it would be evident that this discussion on different evaluations of reason is a universal discussion. One of the most important causes that reasoning becomes a topic of discussion is that it is interpreted as the means to create conflict in religion and metaphysics. Both those who touch on the subject with a perspective of religion and those who interpret religion as a conflicting subject perceive reason as a distinct value in designing the ideal human and world, the subject is tied up around the unproductive conflicts between the encounter of reason and revelation. Modernism, which constitutes the intellectual infrastructure of the modernization project identified as an objective by the mentality that dominates the Tanzimat Reform Era, rejects the sacred essentially and thus it is inevitable for a civilization based on tradition to have difficulties in incorporating such an influence in its structure. In revealing how modernism, which receives its fundamentals and references form the Western civilization, is articulated in Turkish poetry, it is important to carefully analyze the civilization crisis in the axis of modernism for a tradition based society. In a world, where absolute power is assumed as the domination of materiality, the struggle of tradition to survive as a strong component brings Eastern and Western civilizations in a position that the two separate and conflicting powers should be reconciled with each other. Such status interpreted as a form of dualism or confusion on certain issues in Ottoman modernization largely stems from the discriminating and materiality-based definition between the East and the West. Looking at the Tanzimat Reform Era from in today's perspective, it is possible to observe administrators, intellectuals and artists, who are trapped between these two worlds and therefore developed a deep discomfort. However, the mentioned intellectual discomfort should be interpreted as a natural attitude brought by the circumstances of the Tanzimat Reform Era, not as a frailty. Conclusion: The redefinition of the reason as a transformative value by poets and intellectuals during the reform era is the result of a necessity. In emergence of this necessity, adopting positivism as an effective ideology and its spread in the Ottoman intellectual life are not by coincide. The transformation of the Ottoman Empire, which founded its system of thought on the ideal of harmony established between the reason and faith, from a competent state to the “Sick Man” as called by the West, is the result of translating the perception of reason, by alienating its original notion, into a contradictory value that conflicts with faith. This purist approach both brought an intellectual disintegration and adversely influenced the faith and the reason. As much as the faith deprived from the sustenance of reason, the reason lacking the support of faith face the danger of surrendering to delusion. The idea of collaboration between the reason and faith is influential on the Tanzimat Reform Era poet’s attitude in placing positivist reasoning in a significant place in the scope of values, in addition to the emphases that reason is the means. It is possible to evaluate the majority of the dilemma and contradictions, which developed as the style of the poet, as the results of a reflection of a reconciliation effort on language. Tanzimat era poet, who necessitates the guidance of reason and supports his belief system with concrete evidence, adopts a religious perspective, which proceeds towards a sense of faith based on evidence of reason, from the sense of faith based on acceptance. In the texts of poets, who aim to create a system of thought in which reason and faith are of mutual assistance and interaction, presentation of reason with the literary image as light and conclusion of texts with a God submissive attitude by expressing devotion could be interpreted as an attempt to rebuild the bridges between the reason and faith, which are believed to come from the same source. Opposition to positivism in the Tanzimat Reform Era is closely related to the interpretation that positivism is an obstacle to the religious progress in a tradition and religion based state. Tanzimat era poets and intellectuals, who aimed to transform this conflict into a constructive dynamism under the effect of reason in Islamic dogma and romanticism, tried to overcome the negative effects of positivism on Ottoman constitution with the thought of a synthesis and thus the questioning attitude of reason was brought forward without disregarding the traditions in the system of thought.