ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the apparent actual exchange of letters that inspired Denis Diderot’s text and discusses the various forms of writing in La Religieuse and their effect on communication as well as implications for the dangers of the written word. It examines other instances of writing in La Religieuse and their rapport with Julia Kristeva’s terms pere-versite/mere-versite as they connect to sublimation and the primal drives in relation to language and gender. The chapter deals with an examination of the backstory of La Religieuse and the reported actual letters exchanged between Diderot and his philosopher friends under the guise of the young nun. The multiple references by Diderot in his fictional works to the lettre de cachet mirror its various abundant uses in the first half of the eighteenth century. His aesthetic writings regarding artistic mimesis demonstrate his prioritization of animated and gestural representation as opposed to artificially orchestrated mimesis.
