Montesquieu’s Persian Letters: Cartesian Rationalism, Rebellious Souls (Janet Dougherty)

Recording of a lecture delivered on February 6, 2026, by Annapolis tutor Janet Dougherty, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Ms. Dougherty offers the following description of her lecture: "Usbek, the most prolific writer in Montesquieu’s epistolary novel The Persian Letters, is in voluntary exile from his homeland and his harem. During his sojourn in Europe his perspective as a stranger provides the freedom he needs to develop an understanding of good government completely different from Persian despotic rule. His ideas cohere into a sort of Cartesian political science. But while these ideas diverge continually from an endorsement of despotism, he feels more and more compelled to impose his will on his wives and their guards. Usbek’s hope to be loved by the women he oppresses endures alongside his enlightened views of law and government. Eventually his wives openly rebel; the collapse of the seraglio leads to Usbek’s collapse. I will argue that Usbek’s blindness to his despotic authority derives from his Cartesian method of inquiry. His enlightenment is linked by ‘a secret chain’ to his deepest prejudice. Montesquieu is pointing to a more thorough science of human, i.e. erotic, beings."