LETTERS FROM AND TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

Abstract

Mary Wortley Montagu’s travel letters were written to some individuals such as

Lady Mar, Alexander Pope, and Abbé Conti. Katharine Branning’s travel letters, on the other

hand, have been written to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu but at the same time, the writer is

addressing these letters to her family, friends, readers and also Turkish people. Branning, who

has spent some thirty years in Turkey, is now explaining what has changed in the country

so far and sharing her personal experiences. Thus, this article examines two memoirs of two

women travel writers. The idea that these women travelogs had in mind was to be the voice

of Turkish people; therefore, they both wrote about Turkey, its people and their way of life.

So, this study will determine how Turkish women and Turkish way of life have been depicted

by two western women, British and American. Moreover, there will also be some focus on the

image of Turkish Women. The main intention is to discover whether there have been great

changes in the Turkish way of life and the living conditions after Montagu’s memoir, The

Turkish Embassy Letters.

Keywords

• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,Katharine Branning,Travel Writers,Turkish people,Turkish Women,Harem,Image

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU’DAN VE ONA MEKTUPLAR

Öz

Mary Wortley Montagu’nun seyahat mektupları, Lady Mar, Alexander Pope ve

Abbé Conti gibi kişilere yazıldı. Öte yandan, Katharine Branning’in seyahat mektupları ise

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’ya yazılmış olmakla birlikte, aynı zamanda yazar bu mektupları

ailesine, arkadaşlarına, okuyucularına ve ayrıca Türk halkına da hitap etmektedir. Türkiye’de

yaklaşık otuz yıl geçiren Branning, şimdiye kadar ülkede nelerin değiştiğini anlatırken,

kişisel deneyimlerini de paylaşmaktadır. Böylece, bu makalede iki kadın seyahat yazarının

iki anı yazısı incelenmektedir. Bu kadın seyahat yazarlarının akıllarındaki tek düşünce Türk

halkının sesi olmaktı; bu nedenle ikisi de Türkiye, Türk halkı ve insanların yaşam tarzı

hakkında yazmışlardır. Bu çalışmada, Türk kadınlarının ve Türk yaşam biçiminin İngiliz

ve Amerikalı iki batı kadını tarafından tasvir edilmesi ortaya konulacaktır. Ayrıca Türk

Kadınlarının imajına da değinilecektir. Makale temelde, Montagu’nun seyahat mektupları

olan Şark Mektuplarından sonra Türk yaşamında ve yaşam koşullarında büyük değişiklikler

olup olmadığı üzerinde duracaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,Katharine Branning,Seyahat Yazarları,Türk halkı,Türk Kadını,Harem,İmaj

Kaynakça

1. ALTINAY, Ahmet Refik, Lale Devri (1718-1730): Tarihe Yolculuk, Geçmiş Asırlarda Osmanlı Hayatı, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul, 2011.
2. ARAT, Zehra F. “Introduction: Politics of Representation and Identity”, Deconstructing Images of “The Turkish Woman”, Ed. Zehra F. Arat, Palgrave Press, New York, 1999.
3. BRANNING, Katharine, An American Women’s Letters to Turkey: Yes, I Would Love Another Glass of Tea, Blue Dome Press, New York, 2012.
4. CRAVEN, Elizabeth Lady, A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople, G.G. J. and J. Robinson, London, 1789.
5. DAVIS, Fanny, The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918, Greenwood Publishing Group, New York, 1986.
6. DODD, Anna Bowman, In the Palaces of the Sultan, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1903.
7. ELLISON, Grace, (1915) An English Woman in a Turkish Harem, Cultures in Dialogue Series One, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2007.
8. FELLOWS, Sir Charles, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, More Particularly in the Province of Lycia, London, 1852.

9. GARNETT, Lucy M. J. The Women of Turkey and Their Folk-Lore, David Nutt, London, 1891.
10. GOFFMAN, Carolyn, “Introduction”, Behind Turkish Lattices: The Story of A Turkish Woman’s Life, by Hester Donaldson Jenkins, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2004.
11. HANOUM, Zeynep, (1913) A Turkish Woman’s European Impressions. Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey, 2004.
12. HEFFERNAN, Teresa and Reina Lewis. “Introduction to the Reprint: Feminist Dialogues Across Cultures: An English Woman in a Turkish Harem and the Turkish Harem in an English Woman”, An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem, (1915) By Grace Ellison. Gorgias Press, New Jersey, 2007.
13. JENKINS, Hester, Donaldson, (1911) Behind Turkish Lattices: The Story of a Turkish Woman’s life, Gorgias Press, Piscataway, New Jersey. 2004.
14. KAÇMAZ, Ercan, Turkish Women, Education and Missionary Practices in the Works of Hester Donaldson Jenkins, (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation), Dokuz Eylül University, Graduate School of Social Sciences, İzmir, 2014.
15. MACAULAY, Rose, The Towers of Trebizond, Fontana Books, London, 1967.
16. MONTAGU, Lady Mary Wortley, (1763) The Turkish Embassy Letters, Virago Press, London, 1994.
17. ÖZTÜRK, Fatih, A New Historicist Approach to Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond, (Unpublished Master’s Thesis), Erciyes University, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Kayseri, 2008.
18. SCHICK, İrvin Cemil, “The Women of Turkey as Sexual Personae: Images from Western Literature”, Deconstructing Images of “The Turkish Woman”. Ed. Zehra F. Arat, Palgrave Press, New York, 1999.
19. URGAN, Mina, İngiliz Edebiyatı Tarihi, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, İstanbul, 2012.