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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Among students of political philosophy, Montesquieu is chiefly honored as author of The Spirit of the Laws. His earlier important work, The Persian Letters, is more often cited than read and is considered primarily as a collection of fragments, some of which may be useful for clearing up some disputed point or other in the interpretation of the magnum opus. In these notes I propose to treat it as a meaningful whole—as a book which in fact has the theme which it purports to have, the theme of love and its relation to social institutions. This is not an altogether novel approach, even among political scientists. The late Franz Neumann, for example, has pointed out the importance of this theme in his introduction to the Hafner edition of The Spirit of the Laws. Nevertheless, I believe that Montesquieu's conception of love is sufficiently important and the implications of his conception sufficiently interesting, so that a closer analysis will not be redundant.
1 Neumann, Franz L., “Montesquieu,” The Democratic and the Authoritarian State (Glencoe, 1957), pp. 103–4Google Scholar; cf. Loy, J. Robert, “Introduction,” to Montesquieu, , Persian Letters (New York, Meridian Books, Inc., 1961)Google Scholar.
2 Montesquieu, , Lettres Persanes, ed. Adam, Antoine (Geneva and Lille, 1954), Lettre VI, p. 20Google Scholar. The translations used here are greatly indebted to Anne Dobbs, although final responsibility for the text rests with the author. There are two English translations of the Persian Letters: the first, by an anonymous translator, was published in a limited edition in London in 1897; it is charming in style, but often quite inaccurate; the second, by J. Robert Loy (cited in the note above) is very accurate, but tends to let a concern for literalness obscure the sense conveyed by overtones and style.
3 Montesquieu, op. cit., Lettre CLVII, p. 400.
4 Ibid., Lettre CLVIII, p. 402.
5 Ibid., Lettre LV, p. 143.
6 Ibid., loc. cit.
7 Ibid., Lettre LXXXVI, p. 223.
8 Ibid., Lettre LXVII, p. 175.
9 Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis (New York, 1953), p. 389Google Scholar.
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