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Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Oscar Wilde's Salomé

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Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Oscar Wilde's Salomé SOCIAL MENTALITY AND RESEARCHER THINKERS JOURNAL Doı: http://dx.doi.org/10.31576/smryj.718 REVIEW ARTICLE SmartJournal 2020; 6(39):2708-2715 Arrival : 16/10/2020 Published : 27/12/2020 IDENTIFYING EGOISM, INDIVIDUALISM, SELFISHNESS AND FREEDOM OF CHOICE WITH THEIR CHARACTERS BY HINTING TO BIBLICAL AND MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS IN THE CONTEXT OF TWO PLAYS: HENRIK IBSEN’S PEER GYNT AND OSCAR WILDE’S SALOMÉ Bağlam İçinde İncil’e Ait ve Mitolojik Karakterleri İşaret Ederek Karakterlerini Egoizm, Bireyselcilik ve Seçim Özgürlüğüyle Özdeşleştiren İki Oyun: Henrik Ibsen’in Peer Gynt’i ve Oscar Wilde’ın Salomé’u Reference: Sarıbaş, S. (2020). “Identifying Egoism, Individualism, Selfishness And Freedom Of Choice With Their Characters By Hinting To Biblical And Mythological Characters In The Context Of Two Plays: Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt And Oscar Wilde’s Salomé”, International Social Mentality and Researcher Thinkers Journal, (Issn:2630-631X) 6(39): 2708-2715. Asts. Prof. Serap SARIBAŞ Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University, Faculty of Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, Karaman / TURKEY ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4079-8024 ABSTRACT ÖZET As an example of the first generation, this paper will focus on İlk neslin bir örneği olarak, bu makalede Henrik Ibsen’in 1867 Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt published in 1867. For yılında yayınlanan Peer Gynt eserine odaklanılacaktır. İkinci exemplification of the second generation, Oscar Wilde’s Salomé neslin bir örneklemesi adına, Oscar Wilde’ın ilk kez 1891 first published in 1891 will be studied. Finding similarities yılında yayımlanan Salomé eseri üzerinde durulacaktır. Bu between two plays, showing how they fulfill the specific çalışmanın temel amacı iki oyun arasında benzerlikleri ortaya elements of symbolism and sometimes decadence, and koymak, sembolizmin ve bazen de gerilemenin belirli unsurlarını analyzing the main symbols in the plays are the main purpose of nasıl hayata geçirdiklerini göstermek ve oyunlardaki temel this paper. Although Peer Gynt and Salomé are not quite similar sembollerin analizini gerçekleştirmektir. Peer Gynt ve Salomé to each other, the authors of the plays used the same technique birbirlerine pek benzer oyunlar olmasa da yazarları aynı şekilde, of creating a new story from the ashes of an old. This paper will eski bir öykünün küllerinden yeni bir öykü yaratma tekniğini start by comparing Ibsen and Wilde’s styles, and why they chose kullanmışlardır. Çalışma, Ibsen ve Wilde’ın tarzlarının to base their modern plays on old stories. Before analyzing these karşılaştırılmasıyla başlayacak ve neden modern oyunlarını eski plays, it will be shown that these two plays are not from the pure öyküler üzerine kurdukları sorusu yöneltilecektir. Bu oyunların imaginations of the authors and that the playwrights were incelenmesinden önce oyunların, yazarlarının saf hayal inspired by ancient stories. Thus, some background information gücünden doğmadığı, yazarların kadim öykülerden etkilendiği on each play will be given. Secondly, this paper will discuss the ifade edilecektir. Dolayısıyla her oyuna ilişkin bilgi verilecektir. features and content of Peer Gynt. Structure and the content are Çalışmanın ikincil amacı, Peer Gynt’in özellikleri ve içeriğini very important in this play because it is written in poetic ortaya koymaktır. Yapı ve içerik bu oyunda oldukça önemlidir language, and thus is very different from his previous çünkü oyun şiirsel bir dille yazılmıştır ve bu yüzden de yazarın conventional plays. The play is about a young man in his diğer geleneksel oyunlarından oldukça farklıdır. Oyun yirmili twenties. He is dreaming and recounting his dreams to others. yaşlarında genç bir adamı anlatır. Karakter, hayal kurmakta ve He is accused of being a liar because the dreams he recounts are kurduğu bu hayallerin başkalarına anlatmaktadır. Yalancı not true. He makes up adventures that he in fact wants to olmakla suçlanır çünkü anlattığı hayaller gerçek değildir. experience. The play has five acts and it is not structured as a Aslında deneyimlemek istediği maceralar uydurur. Oyun beş well-made play. Finally, the symbolism in Salomé will be perdeden oluşmaktadır ve iyi bir oyun olarak kurgulanmamıştır. analyzed. Salomé is not a poetic drama and has a different style Son olarak Salomé’daki sembolizm incelenecektir. Salomé from Peer Gynt. However, the basic idea is the same. This story şiirsel bir dram değildir, Peer Gynt’tan farklı bir tarzı vardır. is based on a biblical story about the prophet John who is Ancak sunulan temel fikir aynıdır. Öykü Tetrarch tarafından executed by the Tetrarch. öldürülen peygamber John’a ilişkin İncil’den esinlenilmiş bir Key Words: The Symbolist Movement in Literature, Purely öykü üzerine kurgulanmıştır. Symbolic Characters, Stereotypical Images, Wholeness of Anahtar Kelimeler: Edebiyatta Sembolist Akım, Bütünüyle Experience Sembolik Karakterler, Basmakalıp İmgeler, Deneyimin Bütünlüğü ©Copyright 2020 by Social Mentality And Researcher Thinkers Journal Social, Mentality and Researcher Thinkers Journal 2020 DECEMBER (Vol 6 - Issue:39) 1. INTRODUCTION Symbols could be seen everywhere literature and even in people’s daily lives. Without giving any sub- meaning, a word would be worthless in literature. Symons Arthur and Richard Ellmann (2006) emphasize in their contributed book The Symbolist Movement in Literature that “without symbolism there can be no literature; indeed, not even language”. The beginning of the symbolic drama does not have a certain point since “it was a residue from an older, romantic philosophy” (Styan, 1981, p. 5). However, it was verbalized first in the nineteenth century of French Literature in the poets’ school.The aim was to apply this style into poetry and for symbolists the important thing was “the existence of transcendent realism of being” (Mullane &Wilson,1989, p. 169). “Although the term Symbolism was first applied to this school of poets by Jean Moréas in 1885, the stylistics, thematic and philosophical tenets of the movement were established earlier(...)” (Mullane& Wilson,1989, p. 169). For instance, Richard Wagner (1813-83) is considered the pioneer of symbolist writing and composing. He believed that “myth” has a significant place in man’s imaginative world. It is the source of inspiration. Wagner argued that music and drama should be together. With the harmony of these two, “the ideal lyric drama” can be created. In order to create the ‘tone’ of lyricism in drama, poetry needs to be used. Thus, the combination of music and poetry serves as poetical drama to its audience. Symbols are important in poems. When poetic drama is used, symbols automatically transfer into the drama as well. There are some key points in symbolist arts. “Key terms in the symbolist poetics of the fin-de-siècle were ‘evocation’, ‘allusion' and ‘suggestion’ and it is thus unsurprising to note that the symbolists were initially suspicious of what they perceived as the theatre’s ‘material and external nature” (Chamberlain, 1997, p.25). While reading a text, the reader should feel suspicious about the characters and the things these characters mention in the play. In addition to this, there should be allusions. For instance, mythical or biblical images can be interpreted in the text. Staging the drama is also important in symbolist theatre. That is why the text is more important than the setting in the play. Styan (1981, p. 7) indicated that it is not possible to say anything directly on symbolism, but “Wagner’s vision of purity and idealism in art led him well away from the realism of the later nineteenth-century stage”. The idea of symbolism gained strength with Wagner’s “desire to present a full emotional and spiritual experience on the stage” (Stayn, 1981, p. 9). Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) contributed to the idea of symbolism with his work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit published in 1872. His aim was “to describe a drama which expressed our ‘inmost being’, and justify the necessity of a dream-world” (Stayn, 1981, p.10). Literature is associated with the imagination of the author and this imagination comes from the spirit. In Nietzsche’s and Wagner’s arguments on emotional expression of the dream world, “symbolist drama widened to embrace all theatrical manifestations of dream and fantasy” (Stayn, 1981, p. 29). With the Naturalist movement, science became more important in literature and of course in drama. Symbolism was created as a reaction to this movement. “The naturalists regarded symbolists as romantic and decadent, and the symbolists scorned the naturalists as political and materialistic” (Stayn, 1981, p. 24). They are in direct opposition to each other. Symbolists give importance to individualism, unlike Naturalists. “Defining the principles of Symbolist art, Gourmont noted that Symbolism meant ‘individualism in literature, liberty in art,’ and the ‘abandonment of existing form,’ as well as ‘anti-naturalism’ and a ‘tendency to take only the characteristic detail out of lie” (Mullane& Wilson, 1989, p. 170). As mentioned, “dream world” and “myth” are important to create drama, which is both far away from realism, yet also integrated with real life. One can separate the symbolist movement into two generations. The first generation is before Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949); the second is after Maeterlinck. Maeterlinck believed that poetic drama should not be performed as contemporary drama because “the style of acting” in contemporary drama was “too realistic” (Stayn, 1981, p. 28). The spirit is important in poetic drama. Without spirit, the play would be meaningless. “If we stay on a realistic level, we remain ignorant of the eternal world, and therefore of the true meaning of existence and destiny, of life and death. The poet must deal with what is unseen, superhuman and infinite” (Stayn, 1981, p. 28). 2. SYMBOLISM IN IBSEN’S PEER GYNT and WILDE’S SALOME The spirit has a big role in writing symbolist plays. It is individuality itself and old fairy tales and myths contribute to removing materialism from the self. The material world, which is assumed to be reality, causes a person to become alienated from his or her own self and own reality.
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