Dokuz Eylül University Journal of Humanities

Abstract

Haldun Taner continues to write stories and plays simultaneously from the 1940s to the 1980s. He produces dozens of works in both literary genres. These works, which are the output of Taner's sharp intelligence and observation power, are similar in terms of both the themes they contain and the experimental attitude, critical view and humorous style in their expression. This similarity is more evident among some of the author’s stories and plays. Taner turned his long story Ayışığında “Çalışkur” which was first published as a book with the same name in 1954, into a play under the name Ayışığında Şamata in 1977. These works, which the author has included in an intertextual process through adaptation, are in the line of experimental literature with their extraordinary fictions and expression styles. The adapted text, Ayışığında “Çalışkur”, is a story created under various titles, moving away from classical fictionalizing rules. In the first chapter, which gives the story its name, the reader is confronted with a classic story text. The planes that make the work extraordinary and include the receiver in the narrative, albeit fictional, come into play under other headings after this stage. In the “Reactions of the Story” section, the reactions developed by the fictional reader after reading the story; presented to the real reader through various letters, reviews and reports. In the “Conclusion”, the author tries to rewrite his story by taking into account the reactions of the fictional reader. This part of the story, where the before and after the reader’s reactions are given side by side, is followed by the “Epilogue”, which was written to satisfy the reader. After this part, which puts the final point on the story, the comments of the reader, whose wishes are fulfilled, are brought together in the “Reactions of the Conclusion”. Years later, Taner continued the same experimental attitude in the theater and probably wanted to shake the audience, so he created an epic play from this avant-garde story, in which he shook the real reader who took refuge in the world of pink dreams with a sarcastic approach. In this adaptation, which the author made by remaining largely faithful to his primary text, the differences arising from the change in literary genre and historical period attract attention. In this study, which aims to approach the subject within the framework of intertextuality, these differences will be focused on and transformations that occur in semantic and formal terms in the transfer of an avant-garde story to epic theater will be discussed comparatively.