Destiny and Nature’s Elements: A Semiotic Approach to Oktay Rifat's "Perçemli Sokak"

The eternal question of man's Destiny is always present in the thoughts of modern poets. In his collection, "PerçemliSokak", OktayRifat tries to find answers to this enigma, posing this notion in the trilogy of Life, Death and Destiny. He combines innovative images depending on puns and surrealistic techniques following the steps of the surrealism movement. This paper attempts to invade a new field of studying "the notion" in the Turkish poetry, by using Semiotics which is a new methodology of interpretation, and byreviewing the treatments of the issue of meaning. This approach helps in understanding the secrets of the obvious signs and the unity of the poem through revealing the inner invisible harmony.
Accordingly, this study analyzes the natural elements in this collection and its semiotic interpretation through the notion of Destiny, in order to identify the characteristics of the Second Renovation Movement in the Turkish poetry and the innovationsof OktayRifat in the issue of meaning.With regard the form, OktayRifat wrote a number of poetic pieces that tackled the daily life events. He made use of the stream of consciousness and the free association of ideas which added more weight to the meaning. In addition to writing in free verse, OktayRifat wrote prose poems influenced by the surrealistic approach which lead to the spread of these forms of poetry that became part of the new Turkish heritage that is oriented towards abstraction and manipulation of words. As for the content, the surrealistic influence is manifested in the main theme of the poems of this collection, which is Destiny. Moreover, it is demonstrated in the references to the surrounding natural and environmental elements that were expressed in visual and artistic images.