Microsoft Word 1 Arif thesis cover final doc

CHAPTER 4 – HALIDE EDIP AND YAKUP KADRI 
138 
Wars which had resulted in the loss of most parts of Rumelia to the Greeks. It is 
important to remember that Ömer Seyfettin had participated in this war and had 
spent about a year as a prisoner of war having been captured in Yanya
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. 
“
Bizi Yunan donanmasına iane toplıyan ve Yunanîlığa hizmet eden iki adam gibi 
gösteriyordu” (he showed us as two men making collections towards the Greek navy 
and supporting Hellenism)
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, recalls Yahya Kemal. 
However, Ömer Seyfettin’s reaction was directed against the untimeliness of the 
initiative and not against Greek literature which he clearly admired: in 1918 he was 
to publish more than half of the 
Iliad 
in instalments in 
Yeni Mecmua
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. In his article 
“Garp Edebiyatı ve Yunan Klâsikleri”(Western Literature and the Greek Classics) 
published in 
Türk Kadını Mecmuası 
(The Turkish Woman’s Review) on 9th January 
1919 he connects the splendours of western literature with its classical inspiration. 
He criticises the Turkish writers of the Edebiyat-ı Cedide period, who, although they 
had followed the literary models set by French authors, had overlooked the 
importance the latter had placed on the use of a simple language spoken and 
understood by the ordinary people. Had the Turks done the same they would have by 
now become classics too. He stressed the importance of the Greek classics as a 
source of Western literature and the eternal value of Homer
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. With such 
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Alangu. 2010. 186-228 in which Ömer Seyfettin’s “Balkan Harbi Notları” (Notes from the Balkan War) are 
published as a diary kept during the author’s participation in the Balkan War, his being taken a prisoner of war in 
Greece and finally his return to Turkey (10 October 1912-28 November 1913).
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Yücel, 256 quoting from a conversation he had with Yahya Kemal in 1949. 
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Yücel, 298 where a short extract of his translation which was done from Leconte de Lisle’s French translation. 
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Yücel 287-8 

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