Harem, the world behind the veil - Alev Lytle Croutier

the world behind the veil.

KORTE INHOUD

This book explores harems all over the world, focusing on the celebrated Seraglio of Turkey's Topkapi Palace as a paradigm for all. We are shown the slave market and boudoirs of sultans, the daily routines of the odalisques - their baths, clothes and appetites - and the peculiar lives of the eunuchs who guarded and controlled them; all this alongside the splendour and depravity of the sultans, masters of the harem, whose rule was absolute.;The author also looks at the polygamous households of ordinary Middle Eastern families. She looks at their marital customs, child-rearing, medical practices, superstitions and the expression of desire and jealousy.;Finally, the book portrays how this Eastern institution invaded the Victorian imagination in the form of decoration, costume and art, and how Western ideas, in turn, came to erode a system that seemed all-powerful. The text is illustrated with Orientalist paintings, Turkish woodcuts and miniatures.
1989Taal: Engelszie alle details...

Details

1989Uitgever: Bloomsbury224 paginasTaal: EngelsISBN-10: 0747504970ISBN-13: 9780747504979

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