Department of English
Writing the Journey: June 1999
"Labeling the Lady: The Identities of Lady Hester Stanhope"
Filiz Turhan
New York University
fqt0269@is.nyu.edu
Lady Hester Stanhope journeyed to the Ottoman Empire in 1810 and never returned to England; she thus became the subject of many Travel and Biographical texts. In this paper I claim that for these writers, rendering a "true" portrait of Stanhope is predicated upon answering the central question: why would an aristocratic English woman spurn her native country and live and die among the wild Arabs of the Ottoman Empire? The only way to accomplish this is with the help of a series of literary, historical, and stereotypical labels. In attempting to render a "true" portrait of Stanhope, writers in fact have presented a range of problematic issues regarding national, sexual, literary and authorial identity.
After sketching a precis of Stanhope's life in the East and the books written about her, I present several aspects of identity these texts explore, (each of which overlaps and blends into another.)
- National identity: Stanhope "turns Turk" and renounces her English citizenship, blurring the line between imperious "English aristocrat" and "Despotic Turk". Ironically, Stanhope feels that she can be "most English" only in the Ottoman Empire. This of course uncannily reflects back the question, Is there anything "Turkish" about the "English"?
- Sexual identity: It is often remarked that Stanhope had the stature and intellectual capacity of a man. In living as a single woman in the East, she dressed as a Turkish man and engaged in the (male) political world which became closed to her at home upon the death of her Uncle, the Prime Minister William Pitt. In admiring the masculinized status of Stanhope in the land of the Harem, English writers put themselves into a difficult gender bind.
- Literary-biographical identity: Is Stanhope a real woman or a fictional character out of an exotic story book? Having been the primary subject of a Memoirs, a Travels, a necessary chapter in a score of travelogues throughout the 19th century, a collection of Letters, and several 20th century biographies, Stanhope is constantly described in a "rhetoric of strangeness". She is "unbelievable" as a real woman, and only making sense as a second Scheherazade or a Zenobia (the legendary queen of Palmyra.)
- Authorial identity: Stanhope's Memoirs and Travels, while written by her physician Thomas Meryon, reads as if written by herself. Meryon authorizes himself as biographer by masquerading as his subject, thus finally gaining power over the "despot" who exercised her will over him while she had lived and, in turn, gains market value for his text that his own name would not have authorized. Unfortunately, Meryon's authoritative narrative voice has been uncritically utilized as factual detail by 20th century biographers.
It is hoped that this paper will thus provide its audience with an introduction to the fascinating Lady Hester Stanhope, and to raise important questions about the status of evidence, and the dialectical relationship that may obtain between labels and people.
Filiz Turhan
302 East 3rd St., Apt 4C,
New York, NY 10009.
(212) 979-2445
fqt0269@is.nyu.edu
RETURN TO CONFERENCE SPEAKERS, TITLES AND PROGRAM
Updated May 23, 1999