Öz
This article examines Lord Byron’s satirical depiction of the Oriental harem and its women in Canto Five of Don Juan (1821/1859), arguing that Byron’s departure from conventional Orientalist narratives subverts Western fantasies, revealing the intricate dynamics of power, desire, and signifying processes. Through a Lacanian lens, the study explores the Western subject’s desire to signify the Oriental other, positioning the harem and its women as the elusive objet petit a—the unattainable object-cause of desire that structures Western subjectivity. Byron’s use of satire and gender role reversals disrupts the Western gaze from within, exposing the mechanisms that sustain Orientalist discourse. By analyzing the interplay of gender, sexuality, and the semiotics of desire, this article contends that Don Juan functions as a critique of Western attempts to construct and control the female Oriental other. In doing so, Byron not only deconstructs the imagined authority of the Western observer but also reconfigures the representational politics of Orientalist literature, offering a complex and self-reflexive engagement with the discursive forces that shape cultural perceptions of the East.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Kaynakça
- Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992).
- Apter, Emily. Fetishism as Cultural Discourse (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993).
- Behdad, Ali. Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Durhan and London: Duke University Press, 1994).
- Bhabha, Homi K. “Interrogating Identity: The Post Colonial Prerogative”. Identity: A Reader.eds. Paul du Gay, Jessica Evans, and Peter Redman (London: Sage Publications Ltd., 2004), 94-101.
- Botticelli, Sandro. The Birth of Venus. 1484–86. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
- Byron, Lord George Gordon. Don Juan: With Life and Original Notes. Canto the Fifth. [1818-1824/1821]. (Philadelphia: Jas. B. Smith & Co., 1859).
- https://ia800203.us.archive.org/15/items/lordbyronsdonjua00byrouoft/lordbyronsdonjua00byrouoft.pdf Deane, Seamus. “Introduction”. Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature. Terry Eagleton (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990), 3-20.
- Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).
- Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2002).
- Hurley, Kelly. The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siecle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- Kabbani, Rana. Europe’s Myths of Orient: Devise and Rule (London: Macmillan, 1986).
- Lacan, Jacques. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book VII. (ed.) Jacques-Alain Miller. (trans.) Dennis Porter (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992).
- Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. (ed.) Jacques-Alain Miller. (trans.) Alan Sheridan (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998).
- Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function” [1961]. Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English. (trans.) Bruce Fink (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006).
- Lacan, Jacques. Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X. (ed.) Jacques-Alain Miller. (trans.) A. R. Price (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2014).
- Lecomte du Nouÿ, Jean-Jules-Antoine. The White Slave. 1888, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Nantes, France.
- Melman, Billie. Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918: Sexuality, Religion, and Work (London: Macmillan, 1992).
- Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
- Said, Edward. Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
- Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred Knoff, 1993).
- Schick, Irvin Cemil. “The Women of Turkey as Sexual Personae: Images from Western Literature”. Deconstructing Images of the Turkish Woman. (ed.) Zehra F. Arat (New York: Macmillan, 1998), 83- 100.
- Schick, Irvin Cemil. The Erotic Margin: Sexuality and Spatiality in Alterist Discourse (London: Verso, 1999).
- Lane, Edward William. (trans.) The Arabian Nights, Vol I, II, III (London: Charles Knight and Co., 1839).
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “purdah”. Encyclopedia Britannica (9 May. 2008), https://www.britannica.com/topic/purdah.
- Turhan, Filiz. The Other Empire: British Romantic Writings about the Ottoman Empire (London: Routledge, 2003).
- Wehr, Hans, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (3rd ed.). (ed.) J. Milton Cowan (Ithaca, New York: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1976).
- Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. Harem of the Mind: Passages of Western Art and Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
- Yeğenoğlu, Meyda. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Öz
Bu makale, Lord Byron’ın Don Juan’ın Beşinci Kantosunda (1821/1859) yer alan Oryantalist harem ve haremdeki kadınların satirik tasvirini inceleyerek, Byron’ın geleneksel Oryantalist anlatılardan sapmasının Batılı fantezileri altüst ettiğini ve iktidar, arzu ve anlamlandırma süreçlerinin karmaşık dinamiklerini açığa çıkardığını öne sürmektedir. Lacancı bir bakış açısıyla yapılan bu çalışma, Batılı öznenin Oryantal ötekini anlamlandırma arzusunu ele alarak harem ve haremdeki kadınları, Batı öznelliğini yapılandıran; ancak asla tamamen erişilemeyen arzu nesnesi objet petit a olarak konumlandırmaktadır. Byron’ın hiciv ve toplumsal cinsiyet rollerini tersine çevirme stratejisi, Batılı bakışı içeriden bozarak Oryantalist söylemi sürdüren mekanizmaları ifşa eder. Toplumsal cinsiyet, cinsellik ve arzu göstergebilimi arasındaki etkileşimi analiz eden bu makale, Don Juan’ın Batı’nın kadın Oryantal ötekini inşa etme ve kontrol etme girişimlerine yönelik bir eleştiri işlevi gördüğünü savunmaktadır. Böylelikle Byron, yalnızca Batılı gözlemcinin hayali otoritesini yapıbozuma uğratmakla kalmaz, aynı zamanda Oryantalist edebiyatın temsiliyet politikalarını yeniden yapılandırarak Doğu’ya yönelik kültürel algıları şekillendiren söylemsel güçlerle karmaşık ve özdüşünümsel bir etkileşim sunar.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Kaynakça
- Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992).
- Apter, Emily. Fetishism as Cultural Discourse (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993).
- Behdad, Ali. Belated Travelers: Orientalism in the Age of Colonial Dissolution (Durhan and London: Duke University Press, 1994).
- Bhabha, Homi K. “Interrogating Identity: The Post Colonial Prerogative”. Identity: A Reader.eds. Paul du Gay, Jessica Evans, and Peter Redman (London: Sage Publications Ltd., 2004), 94-101.
- Botticelli, Sandro. The Birth of Venus. 1484–86. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
- Byron, Lord George Gordon. Don Juan: With Life and Original Notes. Canto the Fifth. [1818-1824/1821]. (Philadelphia: Jas. B. Smith & Co., 1859).
- https://ia800203.us.archive.org/15/items/lordbyronsdonjua00byrouoft/lordbyronsdonjua00byrouoft.pdf Deane, Seamus. “Introduction”. Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature. Terry Eagleton (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990), 3-20.
- Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).
- Frazer, James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2002).
- Hurley, Kelly. The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siecle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- Kabbani, Rana. Europe’s Myths of Orient: Devise and Rule (London: Macmillan, 1986).
- Lacan, Jacques. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan Book VII. (ed.) Jacques-Alain Miller. (trans.) Dennis Porter (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992).
- Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. (ed.) Jacques-Alain Miller. (trans.) Alan Sheridan (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998).
- Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function” [1961]. Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English. (trans.) Bruce Fink (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006).
- Lacan, Jacques. Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X. (ed.) Jacques-Alain Miller. (trans.) A. R. Price (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2014).
- Lecomte du Nouÿ, Jean-Jules-Antoine. The White Slave. 1888, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Nantes, France.
- Melman, Billie. Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718-1918: Sexuality, Religion, and Work (London: Macmillan, 1992).
- Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
- Said, Edward. Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
- Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred Knoff, 1993).
- Schick, Irvin Cemil. “The Women of Turkey as Sexual Personae: Images from Western Literature”. Deconstructing Images of the Turkish Woman. (ed.) Zehra F. Arat (New York: Macmillan, 1998), 83- 100.
- Schick, Irvin Cemil. The Erotic Margin: Sexuality and Spatiality in Alterist Discourse (London: Verso, 1999).
- Lane, Edward William. (trans.) The Arabian Nights, Vol I, II, III (London: Charles Knight and Co., 1839).
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “purdah”. Encyclopedia Britannica (9 May. 2008), https://www.britannica.com/topic/purdah.
- Turhan, Filiz. The Other Empire: British Romantic Writings about the Ottoman Empire (London: Routledge, 2003).
- Wehr, Hans, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (3rd ed.). (ed.) J. Milton Cowan (Ithaca, New York: Spoken Language Services, Inc., 1976).
- Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. Harem of the Mind: Passages of Western Art and Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
- Yeğenoğlu, Meyda. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Ayrıntılar
| Birincil Dil | İngilizce |
|---|---|
| Konular | Sosyoloji (Diğer) |
| Bölüm | Araştırma Makaleleri |
| Yazarlar | |
| Yayımlanma Tarihi | 1 Haziran 2025 |
| Gönderilme Tarihi | 18 Aralık 2024 |
| Kabul Tarihi | 14 Mayıs 2025 |
| Yayımlandığı Sayı | Yıl 2025 Cilt: 17 Sayı: 1 |
- Makale Dosyaları