Fair Boys and Wicked Ladies: peoples of the Balkans in the work of Enderunlu Fazıl Bey
Resource type
Book chapter
Creator (person)
Erdman, Michael
Date published
2024
Abstract
In this chapter, I examine Enderunlu’s description of women and young men from the Balkans in both works. Fazıl Bey’s poetics were initially denigrated as uninteresting by E. J.W. Gibb, but they have since found a new audience and a new importance, both among scholars and the broader public. Beyond the literary virtues of his writing, I explore the discriminatory, (homo)erotic and patriarchal undertones of the works, relying on recent scholarship around Fazıl Bey’s oeuvre, as well as erotic and instructional Ottoman literature more broadly. I stress the nexus of desire, derision and distrust that informed elite conceptions of Balkan societies, and seek antecedents or causes for it in earlier Ottoman literary manuals, as well as the socio-political situation of the poet’s time. In doing so, I extract valuable insights into Fazıl Bey’s contribution to a tradition of characterisation of the peoples of the Balkans.
Book title
Travellers in Ottoman Lands II: The Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond
Editor
AÅ¡Ä erić-Todd, Ines
Smajić, Aid
Starkey, Janet
Starkey, Paul
Pagination
266-289
Publisher
Archeopress
Official URL