Persian Letters
Encyclopedia
Persian Letters is a literary work by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
, recounting the experiences of two Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who are traveling through France
.
in Isfahan to undertake the long journey to France, accompanied by his young friend Rica. He leaves behind five wives (Zachi, Zéphis, Fatmé, Zélis, and Roxane) in the care of a number of black eunuchs, one of whom is the head or first eunuch. During the trip and their long stay in Paris
(1712–1720), they comment, in letters exchanged with friends and mullah
s, on numerous aspects of Western, Christian society, particularly French politics and mores, ending with a biting satire of the System of John Law
. Over time, various disorders surface back in the seraglio, and, beginning in 1717 (Letter 139 [147]), the situation there rapidly unravels. Usbek orders his head eunuch to crack down, but his message does not arrive in time, and a revolt brings about the death of his wives, including the vengeful suicide of his favorite, Roxane, and, it appears, most of the eunuchs.
The Chronology breaks down as follows:
, a front for the Amsterdam publisher Jacques Desbordes whose business is now run by his widow, Susanne de Caux. Called edition A, this is the text utilized in the recent critical edition of Lettres persanes for the complete works of Montesquieu published by the Voltaire Foundation in 2004. A second edition (B) by the same publisher later in the same year, for which there is so far no entirely satisfactory explanation, curiously included three new letters but omitted thirteen of the original ones. All subsequent editions in the author’s lifetime (i.e., until 1755) derive from A or B. A new edition in 1758, prepared by Montesquieu’s son, included eight new letters – bringing the total to 161 – and a short piece by the author entitled "Quelques réflexions sur les Letters persanes." This latter edition has been used for all subsequent editions until the Œuvres complètes of 2004, which reverts to the original edition but includes the added letters marked as "supplementary" and, in parentheses, the numbering scheme of 1758.
until "Quelques remarques sur les Lettres persanes," which begins: "Nothing about the Lettres persanes was more ingratiating than to find in it unexpectedly a sort of novel. There is a visible beginning, development, and ending […]." Initially, for most of its first readers as well as for its author, it was not considered primarily a novel, and even less an "epistolary novel
" (as it is often classified now), which was not at that time a constituted genre. Indeed it has little in common with the sole model at the time, Guilleragues’s Lettres portugaises
of 1669. A collection of "letters" in 1721 would more likely evoke the recent tradition of essentially polemical and political periodicals, such as Lettres historiques (1692–1728), the Jesuits’ famous Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1703–1776), not to mention Mme Dunoyer’s Lettres historiques et galantes of (1707–1717) which, in the form of a correspondence between two women, provide a chronicle of the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the beginning of the Regency. The Lettres persanes thus helped confirm the vogue of a format that was already established. But it is in its numerous imitations – such as Lettres juives (1738) and Lettres chinoises (1739) of Boyer d’Argens
, Lettres d’une Turque à Paris, écrites à sa sœur (1730) by Poullain de Saint-Foix (published several times in conjunction with Lettres persanes), and perhaps especially Françoise de Graffigny’s Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747) – not to mention the letter-novels of Richardson
– which, between 1721 and 1754, had in effect transformed Lettres persanes into an "epistolary novel." Whence this remark in Montesquieu’s Mes Pensées: "My Lettres persanes taught people to write letter-novels" (no. 1621).
The epistolary structure
is quite flexible: nineteen correspondents in all, with at least twenty-two different recipients. Usbek and Rica by far dominate with sixty-six letters for the former and forty-seven for the latter (of the final 161). Ibben, who functions more as addressee than correspondent, writes only two letters but receives forty-two. Likewise, an unnamed person (designated only as ***) – if always the same – receives eighteen letters and writes none at all. There is even one complete anomaly, a letter from Hagi Ibbi to Ben Josué (Letter 37 [39]), neither of whom is mentioned elsewhere in the novel.
The letters are apparently all dated in accordance with a lunar calendar
which, as Robert Shackleton
showed in 1954, in fact corresponds to our own, by simple substitution of Muslim names, as follows: Zilcadé (January), Zilhagé (February), Maharram (March), Saphar (April), Rebiab I (May), Rebiab II (June), Gemmadi I (July), Gemmadi II (August), Rhegeb (September), Chahban (October), Rhamazan (November), Chalval (December).
In Paris, the Persians express themselves on a wide variety of subjects, from governmental institutions to salon caricatures. The difference of temperament of the two friends is notable, Usbek being more experienced and asking many questions, Rica less implicated and more free, and more attracted by Parisian life. Although this takes place in the declining years of the aged king, much of what he has accomplished is still admired in a Paris where the Invalides is being completed and cafés and theatre proliferate. We observe the function of parliaments, tribunals, religious bodies (Capuchins
, Jesuits, etc.), public places and their publics (the Tuileries, the Palais Royal
), state foundations (the hospital of the Quinze-Vingts [300] for the blind, the Invalides
for those wounded in war). They describe a thriving culture, where even the presence of two Persians quickly becomes a popular phenomenon, thanks to the proliferation of prints (letter 28 [30]). The café – where debates take place: letter 34 [36] – has become established as a public institution, as were already the theatre and opera. There are still people foolish enough to search at their own expense for the philosopher's stone
; the newsmonger and the periodical press are beginning to play a role in everyday life. Everything from institutions (the university
, the Academy
, Sciences, the Bull Unigenitus
) to groups (fashion, dandies, coquettes), the opera singer, the old warrior, the rake, and so forth).
Usbek for his part is troubled by religious contrasts. Though it never occurs to him to cease being a Muslim
, and while he still wonders at some aspects of Christianity (the Trinity, communion), he writes to austere authorities to inquire, for example, why some foods are considered to be unclean (letters 15–17 [16–18]). He also assimilates the two religions and even all religions with respect to their social utility.
Certain sequences of letters by a single author develop more fully a particular subject, such as letters 11–14 from Usbek to Mirza on the Troglodytes, Letters 109–118 (113–122) from Usbek to Rhedi on demography
, Letters 128–132 (134–138) from Rica on his visit to the library at Saint-Victor. They sketch analyses that will later be developed in L’Esprit des lois
for many subjects such as the types of powers, the influence of climate and the critique of colonization.
Everything cascades in the final letters (139–150 [147–161]), thanks to a sudden analepse of more than three years with respect to the preceding letters. From letter 69 (71) to letter 139 (147) – chronologically from 1714 to 1720 – not a single letter from Usbek relates to the seraglio, which is unmentioned in any guise from letter 94 to 143 (and even in the edition of 1758 from supplementary letter 8 (97) to 145. Moreover, all the letters from 126 (132) to 137 (148) are from Rica, which means that for about fifteen months (from 4 August 1719 to 22 October 1720) Usbek is completely silent. Although he has in the meantime received letters, the reader does not learn of them until the final series, which is more developed after the addition of supplementary letters 9–11 (157, 158, 160) of 1758. Although Usbek has learned as early as October 1714 that "the seraglio is in disorder" (letter 63 [65]). As the spirit of rebellion advances, he decides to act, but too late; with delays in the transmission of letters and the loss of some, the situation is beyond remedy.
A dejected Usbek is apparently resigned to the necessity of returning, with little hope, to Persia; on 4 October 1719 he laments: "I shall deliver my head to my enemies" (147 [155]). He nevertheless does not do so: late in 1720 he is still in Paris, for letters 134–137 (140–145), which contain the whole history of Law’s "System," are in fact posterior to Roxane’s last missive (dated 8 May 1720), which he must already have received – the usual time for delivery being about five months – when he writes the latest in date of his own (supplementary letter 8 and letter 138 [145 and 146]), in October and November 1720.
’s Voyages en Perse, to which he owes most of his information about Persia – which is far from superficial – must of course be recognized; he owned the two-volume edition of 1687 and purchased the extended edition in ten volumes in 1720. To a lesser degree, he drew on the Voyages of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
and Paul Rycaut
, not to mention many other works which his vast library afforded him. Everything having to do with contemporary France or Paris, on the other hand, comes from his own experience, and from conversations of anecdotes related to him.
Various aspects of the book are doubtless indebted to particular models, of which the most important is Giovanni Paolo Marana’s L’Espion dans les cours des princes chrétiens (Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy
), widely known at the time, even though Montesquieu’s characters obviously are Persians and not Turks. While the great popularity of Antoine Galland
’s Mille et Une Nuits (The Arabian Nights) contributes, as do the Bible and the Qu’ran, to the general ambiance of oriental subjects, in fact it has almost nothing in common with the Lettres persanes.
, Pascal
and Fontenelle
. No one had the notion of attaching it to the novelistic genre. The Persian side of the novel tended to be considered as a fanciful decor, the true interest of the work lying in its factitious "oriental" impressions of French society, along with political and religious satire and critique.
In the 1950s began a new era of studies based on better texts and renewed perspectives. Particularly important were the extensively annotated edition by Paul Vernière and the research of Robert Shackleton
on Muslim chronology; also studies by Roger Laufer, Pauline Kra and Roger Mercier, which put new focus on the work’s unity and integrated the seraglio into its overall meaning. Others who have followed have looked into the ramifications of epistolary form, the structure and meaning of the seraglio, Usbek’s contradictions. Beginning about 1970 it is religion (Kra) and especially politics (Ehrard, Goulemot, Benrekassa) which predominate in studies on Letters persanes, with a progressive return to the role of the seraglio with all its women and eunuchs (Delon, Grosrichard, Singerman, Spector) or the cultural cleavage of Orient and Occident.
(n. a. fr. 14365): cf. Edgar Mass, "Les éditions des Letters persanes," Revue française d’histoire du livre nos 102–103 (1999), pp. 19–56.
The most important modern French editions:
There have been numerous English translations, usually under the title (The) Persian Letters:
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...
, recounting the experiences of two Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who are traveling through France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
Plot summary
In 1711 Usbek leaves his seraglioSeraglio
A seraglio or serail is the sequestered living quarters used by wives and concubines in a Turkish household. The word comes from an Italian variant of Turkish saray, from Persian sarai , meaning palace, or the enclosed courts for the wives and concubines of the harem of a house or palace...
in Isfahan to undertake the long journey to France, accompanied by his young friend Rica. He leaves behind five wives (Zachi, Zéphis, Fatmé, Zélis, and Roxane) in the care of a number of black eunuchs, one of whom is the head or first eunuch. During the trip and their long stay in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1712–1720), they comment, in letters exchanged with friends and mullah
Mullah
Mullah is generally used to refer to a Muslim man, educated in Islamic theology and sacred law. The title, given to some Islamic clergy, is derived from the Arabic word مَوْلَى mawlā , meaning "vicar", "master" and "guardian"...
s, on numerous aspects of Western, Christian society, particularly French politics and mores, ending with a biting satire of the System of John Law
John Law (economist)
John Law was a Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself and that national wealth depended on trade...
. Over time, various disorders surface back in the seraglio, and, beginning in 1717 (Letter 139 [147]), the situation there rapidly unravels. Usbek orders his head eunuch to crack down, but his message does not arrive in time, and a revolt brings about the death of his wives, including the vengeful suicide of his favorite, Roxane, and, it appears, most of the eunuchs.
The Chronology breaks down as follows:
- Letters 1–21 [1–23]: the journey from Isfahan to Paris, which lasts 13 months (from 19 March 1711 to 4 May 1712).
- Letters 22 [24]–89 [92]: Paris in the reign of Louis XIV, 3 years in all (from May 1712 to September 1715).
- Letters 90 [93]–137 [143] or [supplementary Letter 8 =145]: the Regency of Philippe d’OrléansPhilippe II, Duke of OrléansPhilippe d'Orléans was a member of the royal family of France and served as Regent of the Kingdom from 1715 to 1723. Born at his father's palace at Saint-Cloud, he was known from birth under the title of Duke of Chartres...
, covering five years (from September 1715 to November 1720).
- Letters 138 [146]– 150 [161]: the collapse of the seraglio in Isfahan, 3 years (1717–1720).
Publication
The novel consisting of 150 letters appeared in May 1721 under the rubric Cologne: Pierre MarteauPierre Marteau
Pierre Marteau , was the imprint of a supposed publishing house. Allegedly located in Cologne from the 17th century onward, contemporaries were well aware that such a publishing house never actually existed...
, a front for the Amsterdam publisher Jacques Desbordes whose business is now run by his widow, Susanne de Caux. Called edition A, this is the text utilized in the recent critical edition of Lettres persanes for the complete works of Montesquieu published by the Voltaire Foundation in 2004. A second edition (B) by the same publisher later in the same year, for which there is so far no entirely satisfactory explanation, curiously included three new letters but omitted thirteen of the original ones. All subsequent editions in the author’s lifetime (i.e., until 1755) derive from A or B. A new edition in 1758, prepared by Montesquieu’s son, included eight new letters – bringing the total to 161 – and a short piece by the author entitled "Quelques réflexions sur les Letters persanes." This latter edition has been used for all subsequent editions until the Œuvres complètes of 2004, which reverts to the original edition but includes the added letters marked as "supplementary" and, in parentheses, the numbering scheme of 1758.
An epistolary novel
Montesquieu never referred to Lettres persanes(Persian Letters) as a novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
until "Quelques remarques sur les Lettres persanes," which begins: "Nothing about the Lettres persanes was more ingratiating than to find in it unexpectedly a sort of novel. There is a visible beginning, development, and ending […]." Initially, for most of its first readers as well as for its author, it was not considered primarily a novel, and even less an "epistolary novel
Epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...
" (as it is often classified now), which was not at that time a constituted genre. Indeed it has little in common with the sole model at the time, Guilleragues’s Lettres portugaises
Letters of a Portuguese Nun
The Letters of a Portuguese Nun , first published anonymously by Claude Barbin in Paris in 1669, is a work believed by most scholars to be epistolary fiction in the form of five letters written by Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues , a minor peer, diplomat, secretary to the Prince...
of 1669. A collection of "letters" in 1721 would more likely evoke the recent tradition of essentially polemical and political periodicals, such as Lettres historiques (1692–1728), the Jesuits’ famous Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1703–1776), not to mention Mme Dunoyer’s Lettres historiques et galantes of (1707–1717) which, in the form of a correspondence between two women, provide a chronicle of the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the beginning of the Regency. The Lettres persanes thus helped confirm the vogue of a format that was already established. But it is in its numerous imitations – such as Lettres juives (1738) and Lettres chinoises (1739) of Boyer d’Argens
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens was a French philosopher and writer.An arch-opponent of the Catholic Church, intolerance and religious oppression, he had to flee his native France and his books were frequently denounced by the Inquisition...
, Lettres d’une Turque à Paris, écrites à sa sœur (1730) by Poullain de Saint-Foix (published several times in conjunction with Lettres persanes), and perhaps especially Françoise de Graffigny’s Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747) – not to mention the letter-novels of Richardson
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...
– which, between 1721 and 1754, had in effect transformed Lettres persanes into an "epistolary novel." Whence this remark in Montesquieu’s Mes Pensées: "My Lettres persanes taught people to write letter-novels" (no. 1621).
The epistolary structure
Epistolary novel
An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...
is quite flexible: nineteen correspondents in all, with at least twenty-two different recipients. Usbek and Rica by far dominate with sixty-six letters for the former and forty-seven for the latter (of the final 161). Ibben, who functions more as addressee than correspondent, writes only two letters but receives forty-two. Likewise, an unnamed person (designated only as ***) – if always the same – receives eighteen letters and writes none at all. There is even one complete anomaly, a letter from Hagi Ibbi to Ben Josué (Letter 37 [39]), neither of whom is mentioned elsewhere in the novel.
The letters are apparently all dated in accordance with a lunar calendar
Lunar calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the lunar phase. A common purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar or Hijri calendar. A feature of the Islamic calendar is that a year is always 12 months, so the months are not linked with the seasons and drift each solar year by 11 to...
which, as Robert Shackleton
Robert Shackleton
Robert Shackleton CBE was an English French language philologist and librarian.Shackleton was born in Todmorden, now in West Yorkshire. He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford and taught French at Brasenose College, Oxford from 1946 to 1966. He also served as college librarian from 1948 to 1966...
showed in 1954, in fact corresponds to our own, by simple substitution of Muslim names, as follows: Zilcadé (January), Zilhagé (February), Maharram (March), Saphar (April), Rebiab I (May), Rebiab II (June), Gemmadi I (July), Gemmadi II (August), Rhegeb (September), Chahban (October), Rhamazan (November), Chalval (December).
Social commentary
In Paris, the Persians express themselves on a wide variety of subjects, from governmental institutions to salon caricatures. The difference of temperament of the two friends is notable, Usbek being more experienced and asking many questions, Rica less implicated and more free, and more attracted by Parisian life. Although this takes place in the declining years of the aged king, much of what he has accomplished is still admired in a Paris where the Invalides is being completed and cafés and theatre proliferate. We observe the function of parliaments, tribunals, religious bodies (Capuchins
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...
, Jesuits, etc.), public places and their publics (the Tuileries, the Palais Royal
Palais Royal
The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a palace and an associated garden located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris...
), state foundations (the hospital of the Quinze-Vingts [300] for the blind, the Invalides
Les Invalides
Les Invalides , officially known as L'Hôtel national des Invalides , is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's...
for those wounded in war). They describe a thriving culture, where even the presence of two Persians quickly becomes a popular phenomenon, thanks to the proliferation of prints (letter 28 [30]). The café – where debates take place: letter 34 [36] – has become established as a public institution, as were already the theatre and opera. There are still people foolish enough to search at their own expense for the philosopher's stone
Philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal...
; the newsmonger and the periodical press are beginning to play a role in everyday life. Everything from institutions (the university
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, the Academy
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
, Sciences, the Bull Unigenitus
Unigenitus
Unigenitus , an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713, opened the final phase of the Jansenist controversy in France...
) to groups (fashion, dandies, coquettes), the opera singer, the old warrior, the rake, and so forth).
Usbek for his part is troubled by religious contrasts. Though it never occurs to him to cease being a Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
, and while he still wonders at some aspects of Christianity (the Trinity, communion), he writes to austere authorities to inquire, for example, why some foods are considered to be unclean (letters 15–17 [16–18]). He also assimilates the two religions and even all religions with respect to their social utility.
Certain sequences of letters by a single author develop more fully a particular subject, such as letters 11–14 from Usbek to Mirza on the Troglodytes, Letters 109–118 (113–122) from Usbek to Rhedi on demography
Demography
Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
, Letters 128–132 (134–138) from Rica on his visit to the library at Saint-Victor. They sketch analyses that will later be developed in L’Esprit des lois
The Spirit of the Laws
The Spirit of the Laws is a treatise on political theory first published anonymously by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu in 1748 with the help of Claudine Guérin de Tencin...
for many subjects such as the types of powers, the influence of climate and the critique of colonization.
The dénouement
While Usbek appreciates the freer relations among men and women in the West, he remains, as master of a seraglio, a prisoner of his past. His wives play the role of languorous and lonely lovers, he the role of master and lover, with no true communication and without revealing much about their true selves. Usbek’s language with them is as constrained as theirs with him. Knowing, moreover, from the outset that he is not assured of a return to Persia, Usbek is also already disabused about their attitude (letters 6 et 19 [20]). The seraglio is a hothouse from which he increasingly distances himself, trusting his wives no more than his eunuchs (Letter 6).Everything cascades in the final letters (139–150 [147–161]), thanks to a sudden analepse of more than three years with respect to the preceding letters. From letter 69 (71) to letter 139 (147) – chronologically from 1714 to 1720 – not a single letter from Usbek relates to the seraglio, which is unmentioned in any guise from letter 94 to 143 (and even in the edition of 1758 from supplementary letter 8 (97) to 145. Moreover, all the letters from 126 (132) to 137 (148) are from Rica, which means that for about fifteen months (from 4 August 1719 to 22 October 1720) Usbek is completely silent. Although he has in the meantime received letters, the reader does not learn of them until the final series, which is more developed after the addition of supplementary letters 9–11 (157, 158, 160) of 1758. Although Usbek has learned as early as October 1714 that "the seraglio is in disorder" (letter 63 [65]). As the spirit of rebellion advances, he decides to act, but too late; with delays in the transmission of letters and the loss of some, the situation is beyond remedy.
A dejected Usbek is apparently resigned to the necessity of returning, with little hope, to Persia; on 4 October 1719 he laments: "I shall deliver my head to my enemies" (147 [155]). He nevertheless does not do so: late in 1720 he is still in Paris, for letters 134–137 (140–145), which contain the whole history of Law’s "System," are in fact posterior to Roxane’s last missive (dated 8 May 1720), which he must already have received – the usual time for delivery being about five months – when he writes the latest in date of his own (supplementary letter 8 and letter 138 [145 and 146]), in October and November 1720.
Sources
Montesquieu’s "sources" are legion, since they doubtless extend to readings and conversations which are modified en route. The impact of Jean ChardinJean Chardin
Jean Chardin , born Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveller whose ten-volume book The Travels of Sir John Chardin is regarded as one of the finest works of early Western scholarship on Persia and the Near East.-Life and work:Chardin was born in...
’s Voyages en Perse, to which he owes most of his information about Persia – which is far from superficial – must of course be recognized; he owned the two-volume edition of 1687 and purchased the extended edition in ten volumes in 1720. To a lesser degree, he drew on the Voyages of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveller and pioneer of trade with India, and travels through Persia , most known for works in two quarto volumes, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and diamond merchant for some important diamonds of the century...
and Paul Rycaut
Paul Rycaut
Sir Paul Rycaut FRS was a British diplomat and historian, and authority on the Ottoman Empire.-Life:...
, not to mention many other works which his vast library afforded him. Everything having to do with contemporary France or Paris, on the other hand, comes from his own experience, and from conversations of anecdotes related to him.
Various aspects of the book are doubtless indebted to particular models, of which the most important is Giovanni Paolo Marana’s L’Espion dans les cours des princes chrétiens (Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy
Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy
Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy is an eight-volume collection of fictional letters claiming to have been written by an Ottoman spy named "Mahmut", in the French court of Louis XIV....
), widely known at the time, even though Montesquieu’s characters obviously are Persians and not Turks. While the great popularity of Antoine Galland
Antoine Galland
Antoine Galland was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of The Thousand and One Nights...
’s Mille et Une Nuits (The Arabian Nights) contributes, as do the Bible and the Qu’ran, to the general ambiance of oriental subjects, in fact it has almost nothing in common with the Lettres persanes.
Critical history
The Lettres persanes was an immediate success and often imitated, but it has been diversely interpreted over time. Until the middle of the twentieth century, it was its "spirit" of the Regency which was largely admired, as well as the caricature in the classical tradition of La BruyèreJean de La Bruyère
Jean de La Bruyère was a French essayist and moralist.-Ancestry:He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan in 1645...
, Pascal
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
and Fontenelle
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle , also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author.Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France and died in Paris just one month before his 100th birthday. His mother was the sister of great French dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille...
. No one had the notion of attaching it to the novelistic genre. The Persian side of the novel tended to be considered as a fanciful decor, the true interest of the work lying in its factitious "oriental" impressions of French society, along with political and religious satire and critique.
In the 1950s began a new era of studies based on better texts and renewed perspectives. Particularly important were the extensively annotated edition by Paul Vernière and the research of Robert Shackleton
Robert Shackleton
Robert Shackleton CBE was an English French language philologist and librarian.Shackleton was born in Todmorden, now in West Yorkshire. He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford and taught French at Brasenose College, Oxford from 1946 to 1966. He also served as college librarian from 1948 to 1966...
on Muslim chronology; also studies by Roger Laufer, Pauline Kra and Roger Mercier, which put new focus on the work’s unity and integrated the seraglio into its overall meaning. Others who have followed have looked into the ramifications of epistolary form, the structure and meaning of the seraglio, Usbek’s contradictions. Beginning about 1970 it is religion (Kra) and especially politics (Ehrard, Goulemot, Benrekassa) which predominate in studies on Letters persanes, with a progressive return to the role of the seraglio with all its women and eunuchs (Delon, Grosrichard, Singerman, Spector) or the cultural cleavage of Orient and Occident.
Key themes
- Comparative religionComparative religionComparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
- ExileExileExile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
- HumanismHumanismHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
- National identityNational identityNational identity is the person's identity and sense of belonging to one state or to one nation, a feeling one shares with a group of people, regardless of one's citizenship status....
and nationalismNationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what... - Race
- ReasonReasonReason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
Recommended bibliography
Though the manuscripts from which were set editions A and B have not survived, there is a notebook of corrections and addenda ("Cahiers de corrections" at the Bibliothèque Nationale de FranceBibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
(n. a. fr. 14365): cf. Edgar Mass, "Les éditions des Letters persanes," Revue française d’histoire du livre nos 102–103 (1999), pp. 19–56.
The most important modern French editions:
- Antoine Adam, Genève: Droz, 1954.
- Jean Starobinski, Paris: Gallimard "Folio," 1973, reprinted in 2003.
- Paul Vernière, Paris: Classiques Garnier, 1960, reprinted in 1965, 1975, 1992; revised edition by Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, Livre de Poche classique, 2001.
- Cecil Courtney, Philip Stewart, Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, Pauline Kra, Edgar Mass, Didier Masseau, Œuvres complètes, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, vol. I, 2004.
There have been numerous English translations, usually under the title (The) Persian Letters:
- Mr. OzellJohn OzellJohn Ozell was an English translator and accountant who became an adversary to Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.He moved to London from the country at around the age of twenty and entered an accounting firm, where he was successful in managing the accounts of several large entities, including the...
, London, 1722. - Mr. [Thomas] Flloyd, London, 4th edition 1762. Available in Eighteenth Century Collections Online to libraries which subscribe to that series.
- John DavidsonJohn Davidson (poet)John Davidson was a Scottish poet, playwright and novelist, best known for his ballads. He also did translations from French and German...
, 1899. A 2002 online version prepared by Ronald Schechter and his students is available at http://www.wm.edu/history/rbsche/plp/ - J. Robert Loy, New York: Meridian Books, 1961.
- George R Healy, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964.
- C. J. Betts, Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin, 1973.
- Robert Shackleton, "The Moslem Chronology of the Letters persanes," French Studies 8 (1954), pp. 17–27.
- Jean Rousset, "Une forme littéraire : le roman par letters," in Forme et signification, Paris: José Corti, 1962, pp. 65–103.
- Roger Mercier, "Le roman dans les Letters persanes: structure et signification," Revue des sciences humaines 107 (1962), pp. 345–56.
- Pauline Kra, "The Invisible Chain of the Letters persanes," Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 23 (1963), pp. 7–60.
- Roger Laufer, "La réussite romanesque et la signification des Letters persanes," Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France 61 (1961), pp. 188–203; reprinted in Style rococo, style des Lumières, Paris: Seuil, 1963.
- Patrick Brady, "The Letters persanes: rococo or neo-classical ? », Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 53 (1967), pp. 47–77.
- Aram Vartanian, "Eroticism and politics in the Letters persanes," Romanic Review 60 (1969), pp. 23–33.
- Jean Ehrard, "La signification politique des Letters persanes," Archives des Letters Modernes 116 (1970), pp. 33–50; reprinted in L’Invention littéraire au siècle des Lumières : fictions, idées, société, Paris, PUF, 1997, pp. 17–32.
- Pauline Kra, Religion in Montesquieu’s "Letters persanes", Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 72 (1970).
- Clifton Cherpack, "Montesquieu’s Usbek: paper Persian or anti-hero?" Kentucky Romance Quarterly 18 (1971), pp. 101–110.
- Jean Marie Goulemot, "Questions sur la signification politique des Letters Persanes," Approches des Lumières, Paris: Klincksieck, 1974, pp. 213–225.
- Alain Grosrichard, Structure du sérail : la fiction du despotisme asiatique dans l’Occident classique, Paris: Seuil, 1979.
- Laurent Versini, Le Roman épistolaire, Paris: PUF, 1979, pp. 40–46.
- Alan Singerman, "Réflexions sur une métaphore : le sérail dans les Letters persanes," Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 185 (1980), pp. 181–198.
- Jean Pierre Schneider, "Les jeux du sens dans les Letters persanes: temps du roman et temps de l’histoire," Revue Montesquieu 4 (2000), pp. 127–159.
- Edgar Mass, Literatur und Zensur in der frühen Aufklärung: Produktion, Distribution und Rezeption der "Letters persanes," Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1981.
- Josué Harari, "The Eunuch’s Tale : Montesquieu’s imaginary of despotism," in Scenarios of the Imaginary, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, pp. 67–101.
- Jean Marie Goulemot, "Vision du devenir historique et formes de la révolution dans les Letters persanes," Dix-Huitième Siècle 21 (1989), pp. 13–22.
- Sylvie Romanowski, "La quête du savoir dans les Letters persanes," Eighteenth-Century Fiction 3 (1991), pp. 93–111.
- Céline Spector, Montesquieu, « Letters persanes », de l’anthropologie à la politique, Paris: PUF, 1997.
- Louis Desgraves, Chronologie critique de la vie et des œuvres de Montesquieu, Paris: Champion, 1998, pp. 36–94.
- Philip Stewart, "Toujours Usbek," Eighteenth-Century Fiction 11 (1999), pp. 141–150.
- Mary McAlpin, "Between Men for All Eternity: feminocentrism in Montesquieu’s Letters persanes," Eighteenth-Century Life 24 (2000), pp. 45–61.
- Jean Goldzink, Montesquieu et les passions, Paris: PUF, 2001.
- Randolph Paul Runyon. The Art of the Persian Letters: Unlocking Montesquieu's "Secret Chain", Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005