Persian Letters (Penguin Classics)
by Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles Louis de Secondat MontesquieuIntroduction: C. J. Betts
Translator: C. J. Betts
Edition: Paperback
Audio: French (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1973-04-30
ISBN: 0140442812
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of Persian Letters (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: East meets West in a satire before Orientalism and its Discontents
Summary: 4 Stars
The Persian Letters is a political satire written in a form of correspondence between Usbek and Rica (two Persians who decide to leave Persia and discover the Occident with all its faults and glories) and their eunuchs, wives and friends back in their homes. They travel through the Ottoman Empire and Venice to arrive in Parris as the centre of knowledge and progress. Through Usbek and Rica, Montesquieu unveils his take on the socio-political environment of the time which must have been the most interesting aspect of the content of this satire for his time. However his Lettres Persanes have become somewhat of a historical source on which Saidian Orientalists refer their arguments to describe Western imaginary perceptions of the Orient and the creation of the Eastern 'Other'. In reality, Montesquieu's knowledge of Persia was certainly not a pure product of the imagination, he was inspired and borrowed heavily from Jean Chardin who visited Persia in the seventeenth century and left a very vivid account of his travels there. Easy read, funny and entertaining.
Summary of Persian Letters (Penguin Classics)
Based on the 1761 edition, this translation strives for fidelity and retains Montesquieu's paragraphing. George R. Healy's Introduction discusses The Persian Letters as a kind of overture to the Enlightenment, a work of remarkable diversity designed more to explore a problem of great urgency for eighteenth century thought than to resolve it: that of discovering universals, or at least the pragmatic constants, amid the diversity of human culture and society, and of confronting the proposition that there are no values in human relationships except those imposed by force or agreed upon in self-interested conventions.General Books
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