Political Philosophy

Persian Letters

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Montesquieu

1721

Persian Letters is Montesquieu's satirical epistolary novel — the fictional correspondence of two Persian travellers, Usbek and Rica, journeying through France in the early eighteenth century. The device of the foreign observer allows Montesquieu to hold French society, religion, and politics up to ironic scrutiny: what seems natural and inevitable to the native is revealed as arbitrary, absurd, or unjust to the outsider's eyes. The letters comment on the Sun King's court, the power of the Pope, the Académie française, gambling, fashion, and the role of women — always implicitly measuring French customs against a hypothetical standard of reason and nature. Woven through the social satire is a darker narrative: the rebellion of Usbek's harem back in Persia and its violent suppression, which reflects on the themes of political despotism and the corruption of power. Persian Letters established Montesquieu's reputation and pioneered the use of fictional form as a vehicle for philosophical and political argument.