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A TRIANGLE OF LOVE: LOVE, SUFFERING, AND MODERNITY IN SAFIYE EROL’S THE NOVEL OF KADIKÖYÜ
This article discusses the tension between modernity and tradition with reference to the relationship
between the concepts of love and suffering in an early Turkish novel, the Novel of Kadıköyü, written by Safiye Erol, who has been largely forgotten by literary critics. By situating love and suffering in the intersection of Christianity, Sufism, and modernization, it argues that love is an ambivalent concept in the life of the early republic, which represents the confused attitudes towards the past, traditions, and the modern. The way Safiye Erol depicts the numerous love stories in the novel displays a certain variety and richness that the concepts of love and suffering embody with regard to the Sufi heritage of the previous Ottoman Muslim culture. The occurrence of love as a pathological event, specifically, points to the tension created by modernity, which categorizes the irrational and the transcendental quality of love as an unacceptable sphere within the modern world.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Love, suffering, rational mind, identity, Sufism, modernization, Safiye Erol.