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Copyright of Lublin Studies in Modern Languages & Literature / Lubelskie Materialy Neofilologiczne is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Department of German & Applied Linguistics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Montesquieu.it is the property of Montesquieu.it and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Three hundred years after the publication of the Lettres persanes in 1721, Montesquieu’s ecdotics, which includes also the translation, is indisputably a scientific work and therefore determines the value of reception, contradicting at the same time what Montesquieu himself thought of his first book: that it was not serious. Whether it was or not, and to what extent should also be reading —the reader could be perfectly satisfied with the taste of pleasant productions of the spirit, in accordance with what had hitherto been the traditional role of the belles lettres— is one of the first difficulties to know it and acknowledge its philosophic dimension.

Cet article aborde la thématique de la séparation dans le dispositif romanesque des Lettres persanes, de Montesquieu, à savoir, le roman du sérail. De ce fait, cette étude entend analyser les formes de la séparation qui aparaissent dans les lettres des trois personnages membres du sérail: les femmes, leur mari Usbek, ainsi que les gardiens eunuques. En premier lieu, il importe de comprendre dans quelle mesure la forme épistolaire des Lettres persanes implique la séparation. Par la suite, on analysera premièrement la réaction des épouses face au départ de leur mari dans les lettres III et VII. Ensuite, on verra en quoi l’exil d’Usbek, contraint à quitter la Perse, constitue une séparation et comment celle-ci finit par le rapprocher de ses eunuques. Enfin, on se penchera de façon plus approfondie sur la figure de l’eunuque, esclave dont on a amputé le sexe et qui semble ainsi incarner le mieux l’aliénation.

Copyright of Journal of Al-Frahids Arts is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the Lettres persanes, Montesquieu gave a striking formulation of the optimum in political philosophy, according to which the 'most perfect government is the one that reaches its goal at the lowest cost' (Letter LXXX). But the narrative tells a different story, one that constantly contrasts the formulation of ideal efficiencies and the reality of waste in all the areas mentioned. What can we think of a narrative philosophy in which the explicit philosophies of efficiency are inseparable from the stories of deficiency? Starting with a commentary on the "standard" formulation of the optimum in Letter LXXX, we will identify as systematically as possible the different formulas that state optima, in the organisation of the seraglio, in religious economy, in the description of political life, by confronting them with the different facets of this narrative of failures, that of Usbek, that of the French monarchy, that of world history. The investigation of the formulations of efficiency and the way in which they are worked on narratively makes it possible to understand how a political philosophy can expose itself as true and at the same time be caught in a sceptical network, which is the very dimension of the narrative. Will we thus be able to propose a solution to the critical conflict about the meaning of the Lettres persanes between the proponents of a philosophical interpretation and the defenders of a carnivalesque reading?