Cultural dilemma in tanzimat poetry

The change and development in the West, which started with the Industrial Revo lution in the mid-1700s, re-arranged the future of the world. Steamships, railways,opened factories; as it rearranges the labor-capital relationship, it also takes theinterstate relations to a more pragmatic dimension. States that grow with thesupport of technological development; they start looking for new colonial areasbecause of new resources, new markets. The prosperity provided by this develop ment and change in the West is admired by the intellectuals of the backward coun tries. In time, the intellectuals/artists of the backward countries begin to emulatethe intellectual resources and artistic accumulation of the developed countries;in this period, which coincides with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Ottomanintellectuals also emulate the West and clash with their own resources. Turkishpoetry in the Tanzimat period, just like this civilization takes shape at a time of cri sis. The Ottoman intellectual /artist, who forgets that change must pass through acertain thought formation and who is deluded that Western gains can be achievedwith a mere emulational approach, experience great confusion at the thresholdof the distance between what is and what should be. In this study; the conflicts,contradictions and dilemmas in the world of thought and emotion reflected in theTanzimat period Turkish poetry will be traced.