Montesquieu - Persian Letters

   Lettres persanes  (Persian Letters)  (1721)

        What are Epistolary novels?


By taking a narrative form of collected letters written by Persian travelers, Persian Letters
mainly describes lives of those travelers in Paris, who are Usbek and Rica, and those of Usbek's wives, eunuchs and slaves, left in his seraglio in Turkey.   The letters are correspondence between Usbek and his friends, his wives, or eunuchs.

The topics of the letters are extensive and difficult to categorize, but the themes that seem to play an important role are very fundamental ones, such as criticism of French society and culture, religion, sometimes of French nation and politics, as well as questions about women, both in France and Persian harem.  Montesquieu's disguise as multiple voices of Persians enables his narrative to provide relatively objective, often sarcastic, views on political, cultural, religious, or feminist issues.  

French customs presumed by people in Paris, especially by upper-class people, are sarcastically described through Persians' perspectives, who are ignorant of those customs.  Usbek raises the questions about the formation of race, gender, and class, through comparisons between France and his country.  He sometimes criticizes France, which is full of vanity and injustice governed by money and fame, in opposition to Asian sincerity and sanctity.  On the other hand, he is skeptical of male-centered, almost tyrannical, harem system in Turkey, in opposition to freedom given to women in Paris.

Some French women assert their feminist perspective, especially in Rica's letters.  Persian women in the seraglio are, however, sometimes idealized as loyal, virtuous wives protected in sanctuary, and sometimes as exotic, erotic, and inscrutable creatures, like Roxana.  Eunuchs who are essential for harem foreground the power-relation of master (male) and his women as well as black eunuchs and white eunuchs.