KARAGOZ AND HIS WORLD: GROTESQUE IMAGERY IN THE TURKISH SHADOW THEATRE


Erdoan N.

REVISTA DE ETNOGRAFIE SI FOLCLOR-JOURNAL OF ETHNOGRAPHY AND FOLKLORE, ss.5-22, 2014 (AHCI) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Basım Tarihi: 2014
  • Dergi Adı: REVISTA DE ETNOGRAFIE SI FOLCLOR-JOURNAL OF ETHNOGRAPHY AND FOLKLORE
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Scopus, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, MLA - Modern Language Association Database
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.5-22
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Based on an analysis of the already transcribed karagoz "scenarios", this study argues that the Turkish shadow theatre is characterized by a grotesque imagery. Its principal stock character, Karagoz, is a fool hero who turns the world upside down and inside out in a grotesque manner. Karagoz is also marked by what Bakhtin calls "carnivalization of speech", i.e. freeing language from gloomy seriousness of the official culture and subverting truisms. The study also asserts that karagoz defies the commonplace classification of the Ottoman cultural field in terms of impermeable and mutually exclusive categories of "high culture" and "folk culture".