The Reflection of Servet-i Fünun as a Logocentric Project to Mai ve Siyah: The Language Striving and The Gender of Modernity in Mai ve Siyah

Literary histories, which focus on the binary opposition of East and West, and regard the ontological crises of Ottoman intellectuals as an oedipal complex, fail to notice the linguistic striving of Servet-i Fünun writers. In fact, the demand for transformation of the writers, who take the power of transgression of modernity, would not regard as independent from the transformation period of modern individual. It is possible to read the linguistic striving in the “Musahabe-i Edebiye” columns as a manifestation of the idea that language is a living thing in opposition to the bases of Arabian rhetoric. The agency which is developed with the modernity, motivates the author to use her/his own experience, compositions and language. Servet-i Fünun writers prefer to use modern imagery, which is a transgression of conventional usings in language, because the idea of find out the ruleless expression of the experienced emotion or opinion has become crucial. However, this transformation and linguistic striving have been told us focusing on only the male writers or male subjects. This study aims to show the linguistic striving and gender of the modern agency throughout the logocentric crises in Mai ve Siyah and “Musahabe-i Edebiye” columns in the journal of Servet-i Fünun, with the intent of an alternative reading to the conventional literary histories