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Mihri Hatun (also known as Lady Mihri and Mihri Khatun, Ottoman Turkish: مهری خاتون; "sun/light"; c.1460 - c.1506), was an Ottoman poet. She was the daughter of a kadi (an Ottoman judge) and according to sources she spent most of her life in and near Amasya, in Anatolia.[1] Documentation places her as a member of the literary circle of Şehzade Ahmed, the son of Sultan Bayezid II.[2] She is referred to as the "Sappho of the Ottomans".[3]
Poetry
editLady Mihri's poems reveal an artist grounded in both Turkish and Persian literature, writing in such forms as the Gazel, as well as the recipient of a deep literary education.[1] Modern critics, such as Bernard Lewis describe her style as “retaining remarkable freshness and simplicity.”[2]
One of her more popular lines goes as follows:[4]
“At one glance
I love you
With a thousand hearts
Let the zealots think
Loving is sinful
Never mind
Let me burn in the hellfire
Of that sin.”
Another is:[5]
“My heart burns in flames of sorrow
Sparks and smoke rise turning to the sky
Within me the heart has taken fire like a candle
My body, whirling, is a lantern illuminated by your image.”
References
edit- ^ a b Havlioglu, 2
- ^ a b Lewis, 207
- ^ John Freely (2009), The Grand Turk : Sultan Mehmet II - conqueror of Constantinople, master of an empire and lord of two seas, London: I.B. Tauris, ISBN 9780857719287
- ^ Halman, 35
- ^ Damrosch, 786
Sources
edit- Damrosch and April Alliston. The Longman Anthology of World Literature: The 17th and 18th Centuries, the 19th Century, and the 20th Century: V. II (D, E, F) Longman, Inc. ISBN 0-321-20237-6
- Halman, Talât Sait and Jayne L. Warner. Nightingales & pleasure gardens: Turkish love poems. Syracuse University Press (2005) ISBN 0-8156-0835-7.
- Havlioğlu, Didem. “On the Margins and between the Lines: Ottoman Women Poets from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Centuries.” Turkish Historical Review 1, no. 1 (n.d.): 25–54. https://www.academia.edu/806853/On_the_margins_and_between_the_lines_Ottoman_women_poets_from_the_fifteenth_to_the_twentieth_centuries
- Havlioglu, Didem. Poetic Voice En/Gendered: Mihri Hatun’s Resistance to ‘Femininity'. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies: Sohbet-i Osmani Series (2010).
- Lewis, Bernard. Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems. Princeton University Press; Ltr ptg edition. (2001). ISBN 0-691-08928-0
External links
edit- Medieval Women, Poetry and Mihri Hatun by Associate Prof. Dr. Huriye Reis, Hacettepe University, Department of English Language and Literature (in English and Turkish)
- Short Biography and One Gazel
- On the margins and between the lines: Ottoman women poets from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries by Didem Havlioglu of the University of Utah