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Zenanname

The Zennanname is a long form 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 masnavi form long poem in the Ottoman Dîvân tradition. In the end of the Zenanname, Fâzıl writes not just the positive and negatives, but satirical and moralistic qualities of the women in the world. The Zenanname is tied with other Ottoman literature known as the bahname, the book of libido/intercourse, that contained stories and scientific substance that reflect approaches and to gender and sexuality. 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.

Reception
File:Persian Woman from Zenannâme, Or. 7094, f.9.jpg|thumb|Persian Woman from Zenannâme, Or. 7094, f.9. The Ottoman Turkish couplet reads: "[As] you gaze upon the virgin girls / You would say they have aged to two hundred years" Scholarly discussion İrvin Cemil Schick identifies a common strain among şehrengiz poems in that an overwhelming number of them describe male beauties, and highlights the Zenanname as a rare example of the description of beautiful women. He partially attributes this imbalance to the gendered division of Ottoman society. Indeed, the work is characterized by Michael Erdman as "exceptionally misogynist at times," and Fâzıl's own preface to the Zenanname delineates the work as having been written on commission to his male lover, reluctantly and "without conviction." In this preface, Fâzıl further identifies himself as having "no inclination towards women". Murat Bardakçı writes that the book, when first printed in book form in 1837, was banned in the Ottoman Empire, purportedly due to its opposition to the institution of marriage. Feminist interpretation Feminist scholars interpreted The Zenanname as a commentary on the representation of women in Ottoman art and literature. These readings understand the texts and its illustrations and the simultaneous idealized and critiques female figures, exposing the tension between aesthetic admiration and the social constraints placed on women in the early modern Ottoman empire. == Manuscripts ==
Manuscripts
Extant illuminated manuscripts of the Zenanname, featuring miniatures of women, are housed in the Köprülü Library (34 Ma 422/4), Istanbul Millet Library (34 Ae Manzum 1061/3 and 1062/2), British Library (Or 7094; formerly in the collection of E. J. W. Gibb), == See also ==
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