Abstract
In the Ramadan of 1898, Servet-i Fünun’s chief editor Ahmet Ihsan and the popular writers of the magazine, Tevfik Fikret and Halit Ziya went to a circus at Sehzadebasi. They viewed an adaptation of Loie Fuller’s famous Serpentine Dance and a pantomime show at that circus. Tevfik Fikret’s “La Danse Serpentine” poem and Halit Ziya’s “Mösyö Kanguru” short story, both of which were published in Servet-i Fünun, were a product of the intense aesthetic experience of that night. For Stephen Mallarme, Serpentine Dance, invented and performed by Loie Fuller, should be a model for the modernist and symbolist poetry of the fin-de-siecle. It was also a popular theme of the early cinema: Lumiere Brothers and Edison made films of various performances of the dance.
Gilles Deleuze emphasized the affinity between fin-de-siecle dance, pantomime, and early cinema. In this paper, I will discuss the essential attributes of the intermedial and heterogeneous assemblage of Servet-i Fünun magazine focusing on Fikret and Halit Ziya’s texts. My main questions will be as follows: How “La Danse Serpentine” and “Mösyö Kanguru” represented body and motion? What were the roles of modern dance, pantomime and early cinema in the formation of Servet-i Fünun literature? How can we situate Servet-i Fünun literature in the context of the fin-de-siecle modernist literature? The theoretical works of Tom Gunning and Gilles Deleuze on early cinema will be my essential references.
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