Ahmet Haşim was an influential Turkish

Turkish people

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 poet of the early 20th century.

Biography

Ahmed Hâşim was born in Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, probably in the year 1884. His father was the provincial governor of the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 sanjak

Sanjak

Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...

 of Fizan. Around 1893, Ahmed went to Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

 with his father, following the death of his mother. In 1906, having graduated from the Mekteb-i Sultanî (now Galatasaray High School), he began work in the Reji, the state tobacco monopoly, and was registered at Istanbul University

Istanbul University

Istanbul University is a Turkish university located in Istanbul. The main campus is adjacent to Beyazıt Square.- Synopsis :A madrasa, a religious school, was established sometime in the 15th century after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. An institution of higher education named the...

's school of law. Between 1908 and 1910, Hâşim worked as a French language teacher in the city of İzmir

Izmir

Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

 and as an officer in the Office of Public Debts (Düyun-u Umumiye). He was conscripted

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

 in the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, serving mostly in Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

; following the war, he returned to Istanbul and worked in the Ottoman Bank. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Hâşim worked as a teacher of aesthetics in the Academy of Fine Arts and as a French language teacher at Istanbul University. For many years, he also wrote essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

s for the newspapers Akşam and İkdâm. Ahmed Hâşim died on 4 June 1933.

Works

Ahmed Hâşim's first poems were published in Mecmua-i Edebiye (مجموعه ادبيه; "Literary Periodical") between 1900 and 1912. At this time, he was a member of the movement known as Fecr-i Âtî (ﻓﺠﺮ ﺁﺕﯽ), or "Dawn of the Future". Later, he would publish together with other poets in the periodical Dergâh (درگاه). In 1921, at around this time, he published his first book of poetry, Göl Saatleri (گول ساعتلرى; "Hours of the Lake"). His second book of poetry, Piyâle (پياله; "The Wine Cup"), would follow in 1926.

Hâşim's early poetry was very much in the Parnassian and Decadent

Decadence

Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...

 vein of the poets Tevfik Fikret (1867–1915) and Cenab Şahâbeddin (1870–1934), early influences who were a part of the Edebiyyât-ı Cedîde (ادبيات جدیده; "New Literature") movement. Hâşim's later poetry, however—collected in Göl Saatleri and Piyâle—evidences more of a French Symbolist

Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

 influence, particularly that of Henri de Régnier

Henri de Régnier

Henri François Joseph de Régnier was a French symbolist poet, considered one of the most important of France during the early 20th century....

, whom Hâşim greatly admired. This late poetry can—to a certain extent—be seen to adhere to the Fecr-i Âtî movement's variation of the Symbolist motto

Art for art's sake

"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, l'art pour l'art, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function...

: "Sanat şahsî ve muhteremdir" (صنعت ﺵﺨﺼﯽ و ﺤﺘﺮمدر; "Art is personal and sacred"). In line with this motto, and with the Symbolist movement in general, much of his poetry was more indirect than direct, using thick imagery so as to create a strong sensory impression, as in the opening lines of his famous poem from the book Piyâle, "Merdiven" ("Stairway"):

آغير، آغير چيقه جقسْك بو مرديونلردن

أتکلرکده کونش رنکى بر ييغين ياپراق

..و بر زمان باقاجقسك سمايه آغلايه رق

،صولر صاراردى ... يوزك پرده پرد صولقده

..قزيل هوالرى سيرايت که آقشام اولقده

Ağır, ağır çıkacaksın bu merdivenlerden,

Eteklerinde güneş rengi bir yığın yaprak,

Ve bir zaman bakacaksın semâya ağlayarak..

Sular sarardı.. yüzün perde perde solmakta,

Kızıl havaları seyret ki akşam olmakta...

Slowly you will ascend these stairs,

A bundle of sun-colored leaves on your skirts,

And once you will look, crying, at the skies...

The waters blanch.. as your face pales curtain-like,

As evening comes—observe the reddened air...

This poem also shows one of the tropes that Hâşim shares with the Symbolists; namely, he uses carefully selected natural images to express the emotional state of the poem's persona

Persona

A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...

. Many of Hâşim's later poems, especially those collected in Piyâle, use this technique in a very brief and evocative fashion, showing the influence not only of Symbolism, but also of the haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

poetry that Hâşim was reading at the time.