ABSTRACT

Highlighting the mix of genres and genders in Fran9oise de Graffigny’s Lettres d ’une Peruvienne, Andre Le Breton described the heroine of her novel, Zilia, as an ‘Usbeck en jupons’1 (Usbek in petticoats). The hybrid nature of the text has fueled an ongoing debate among critics over the last three centuries as to whether this slim volume belongs to the ranks of the sentimental novel or the philosophical one, two seemingly antithetical genres.2 Most critics, however, have failed to examine the extent of the deliberate interplay of the two modes. In a double move, Graffigny composed a sentimental novel that she situated in the world of erudition, by combining the sentimental novel illustrated by Guilleragues’s Lettres portugaises and the novel of social satire exemplified by Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes, thereby linking the two literary traditions by intertextual reference.3 Moreover, the juxtaposition of the heroine’s love letters and their scholarly paratexts underscores the dual heritage of this novel. Indeed, Zilia’s attitude toward writing breaks with the literary commonplaces attributed to the writing heroine earlier in the century; unlike Marivaux’s Marianne, whose wit and style emanates from her worldly sophistication, the Peruvian undertakes the arduous task of learning to read and write French as well as to write critically about her encounters with a new civilization. Whereas the coquette masterfully conceals the work behind her seduction, Graffigny’s protagonist abandons all coquetry to lay bare the labor behind all writing and reflection. In its dual genre, plot, and style, Lettres d ’une Peruvienne charts a new course for the writing heroine in Enlightenment France.