The Understanding of “Willful People” in Namık Kemal’s Poems

The changes taking place throughout the world in the 19th century with the advance of the enlightenment movement had its repercussions in the Turkish literature. Westernization efforts were underway ever since the reforms of the Tanzimat of 1839 and had their impact especially on the genre of poetry, which as a result broke with the traditional structure of the Classical period and led the way to a new literature in its thematic dimension. Namık Kemal was among the poets shaping this new intellectual and literary phenomenon. He was a modernist poet who contributed a broad perspective to Turkish poetry in terms of its conceptual content and, giving a new human profile a central place in his poetry, he challenged the traditional assumptions of classical poetry in a thematic context. This new type of human was not the object in a heavenly conversation, but instead was the subject of a life they fought to establish with their own choices, decisions, and work. A human of free will who had the courage and power to self-realization was the main theme of Namık Kemal’s poetry. On the other hand, it directs our perspective to people who are free, face-to-face, who can add meaning and value to the world and what they do, and who have the power to destroy the domination; despite all the conditioning, conditioning and limitations, the life move of this human who will realize the rebirth has an inevitable and unstoppable nature. Namık Kemal, who has the courage and the power of self-realization, to direct worldly relationships and events, not by shallow and customary voices and words, but by making them the main trail of his poems, to realize social awakening want.In this study on the Concept of a Human with Free Will in Namık Kemal’s Poetry, we examine the human who faces life to succeed against all odds with reference to his poems Hürriyet Kasidesi (Ode to Freedom), Vatan Şarkısı (Song for the Motherland), Kıtalar (Continents), Vatan Türküsü (Ballad of Motherland), and Murabba (Quartet).