ABSTRACT
THIS CHAPTER BUILDS UPON THE SIMPLE ASSERTION THAT THE ODALISQUE IN Byron’s Turkish Tales is a political figure whose disobedient actions are cause for (ambiguously) alarm and celebration. I here suggest that in writing these tales in quick succession, Byron paradoxically explored the Turkish female body, its politically pivotal position, and the particular kind of anxiety that attended that centrality, despite the notion that she is powerless.1 Indeed, the political dimension of the harem woman was well known to English audiences through many plays and histories from the seventeenth century onward. Byron’s depiction of her as a figure capable of domestic and political disruption was thus a continuation and an evolution of a standard association.
