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A review by leventmolla
Mihrî Hatun: Performance, Gender-Bending, and Subversion in Ottoman Intellectual History by Didem Havlioğlu
5.0
This is an eye-opening book which teaches one a lot of interesting facts about the Early Modern Ottoman literary/poetic traditions and how one woman literally invented new styles and techniques to survive as a poet in a male-dominated environment. The text first explains the concept of "platonic" love found in most poems of this era and demonstrates the fact that this abstract concept of love/lover/beloved is actually imagined taking place in a homosocial environment. In most cases the love described in the poem is a platonic one - an idea - and the abstract "beloved" used in the poems are actually male, since the Ottoman concept at that time was to portray positive attributes to males only.
Mihri Hatun, a well-educated woman from a prominent family in Amasya (where Ottoman princes are trained and get ready for their future rule) bends the rules of contemporary poetry to portray a male beloved whilst not hiding the fact that the poet is a woman.
A well-constructed and structural commentary, using intertextual comparisons and putting together the scant information surviving from that era to come up with a compelling case about the existence and contribution of woman pets in Early Modern Ottoman Literature. A must read for History and Literature fans....
Mihri Hatun, a well-educated woman from a prominent family in Amasya (where Ottoman princes are trained and get ready for their future rule) bends the rules of contemporary poetry to portray a male beloved whilst not hiding the fact that the poet is a woman.
A well-constructed and structural commentary, using intertextual comparisons and putting together the scant information surviving from that era to come up with a compelling case about the existence and contribution of woman pets in Early Modern Ottoman Literature. A must read for History and Literature fans....