Word manipulation and power roles in Montesquieu's seraglio

• Grant number: 16/05498-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2016
• End date: April 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Modern Foreign Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Verónica Galíndez
• Grantee: Thais Chauvel
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This proposal aims at the analysis of the intrigue at the harem of Montesquieu's Lettres persanes, seeking to comprehend the space of the seraglio. The study is based on the principle that such a space is elaborated on different perspectives presented by the epistolary writers who are part of the harem: the wives, the eunuchs, and the master. Therefore, the research intends to analyze the linguistic procedures and the lexicon used in the letters of the different members with the purpose of verifying that the word is a weapon of manipulation, which demonstrates the shock between forces of different categories inside the harem. In this perspective, Montesquieu's seraglio is not conceived as a mere element of eastern exoticism, but as the environment for the domestic despotism that molds the bond between the intrigue of the harem and the political-philosophical thinking throughout the romance. The hypothesis raised by the research offers to analyze the space of the seraglio calling upon Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopology, which conceives the speech and the reason (logos) of an alternative (hetero) space (topos) as a means of contestation of familiar places. Consequently, the seraglio, represented through the word of the strained voices from the harem, would constitute a counter-space - fictional - to the west, where the infertility of the despotic system and the violent consequences of tyranny arise.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

CHAUVEL, Thais. The harem of Lettres persanes: a concert of dissonant voices. 2018. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.