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Women of Nature: Pleasure Seekers of Ottoman Literature
Abstract
Following the proclamation of the Second Constitution in 1908, the Ottoman Empire witnessed the advent of new publications and the emergence a new literary genre: erotic fiction. In the aftermath of strict Hamidian censorship, dozens of novels representing sexuality freely and openly were published anonymously, under pseudonyms, or solely with the initials of their writers. Among many are anonymously published Kaymak Tabağı (A Plate of Cream) (1910), Ebü’l Burhan Nedim’s Bir Çapkının Hikayesi (Story of a Casanova) (1910), M. S.’s Zifaf Gecesi Harem Ağasının Muaşakası (Love Making of an Eunuch on Wedding Night) (1913), A. Ali’s Anahtar Deliğinde (Through the Keyhole) (1914), etc. These Second Constitutional Era erotic novels, marginalized and left out of scholarly anthologies or bibliographies for decades, feature scenes of adultery, defloration, extramarital sex, lesbianism, voyeurism, and female characters who were as debaucherous as their male counterparts. I argue that although some of these erotic novels, such as Mehmet Rauf’s Bir Zanbağın Hikâyesi (1910), possibly the first erotic novel of the time, reproduces the highly repeated, message-loaded love triangle theme of early Tanzimat novels, the femme fatale, the concubine, and the spoiled Westernized young man in an erotic context, the majority of them with their female characters who explore their sexuality to its fullest challenge the assumed mission and instructions of the late nineteenth century early Ottoman novels. Early Ottoman novelists such as Ahmet Mithat, Namık Kemal, Mizancı Mehmet Murat and Şemsettin Sami, who believed that the role of the novel was moral and pedagogical, tried to indoctrinate in their works a sense of discipline and social responsibility. Their novels display shared fear of women’s sexuality and young women who pursue their romantic or sexual desires are either killed or commit suicide. Erotic novels of the Second Constitutional Era defy the tragic condemnations of romantic and sexual pursuits in early novels with their depiction of female characters (Muslim or non-Muslim). This paper explores how the Second Constitutional Era erotic novels through erotic, and also humorous and playful, narratives challenged and invalidated fear of women’s sexuality in early Ottoman novels and highlights the contribution of these texts, whether written for the sake of money, for moralizing, or with the purpose of pushing the boundaries, to the discussion of women’s issues.
Discipline
Literature
Geographic Area
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries