The Modern Gays of The Strange Story of the Lady with the Dagger

Abstract

The Strange Story of the Lady with the Dagger is a realistic folk story narrating the adventures of an adolescent who lives in the seventeenth century. In this folk story, male homosexuality takes much place, but the love binding the males to each other in the text differs from the love which shapes the Ottoman poem, the love between a mature male and a beardless boy, which is pederasty. The story gives place especially to the erotic relations and love between adolescents and boys. In this paper, The Strange Story of the Lady with the Dagger will be studied utilising the theoretical texts of writers like Dror Ze'evi, Walter G. Andrews, Mehmet Kalpakli{dotless}, David Halperin and Foucault. The story is a text of significance for those studying homoerotic Ottoman literature.