The Zennanname (, ) is a Long poem by Enderûnlu Fâzıl, completed in 1793. It categorizes and describes the positive and negative attributes of women from across the Ottoman Empire and the world according to their places of origin, in a Mathnawi form long poem in the Ottoman poetry Dîvân tradition. The Zenanname is a sequel to the Hubanname (1792-3), an equivalent work on young men by the same author. Both works are in the şehrengiz () style of the masnavi, a typology of poems describing the beauties of a city.
The work was translated into various European languages in the late 19th century, beginning with Jean-Adolphe Decourdemanche's 1879 French language translation as the . E. J. W. Gibb, among the first and most notable translators of Ottoman poetry into English language, included verses from the Zennanname in his extensive six-volume survey, A History of Ottoman Poetry. One such translation is as follows:
Jean-Adolphe Decourdemanche, in his introduction to the 1879 French translation, writes that the Zenanname was considered Fâzıl's masterpiece and the best-known of his works. He also emphasizes that his motivation to translate the Zenanname above numerous other and occasionally more significant works of Ottoman poetry arose from the Orientalism interest in women and harems in the Ottoman realm.
Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, a prominent orientalist and historian of the Ottoman Empire, compared the work to Ovid's Ars Amatoria in his History of Ottoman Poetry.
Murat Bardakçı writes that the book, when first printed in book form in 1837, was Book censorship in the Ottoman Empire, purportedly due to its opposition to the institution of marriage.
|
|