The “Inca Utopia” in the Novel “Letters from a Peruvian Woman” by F. De Graffigny

The article considers the French novel “Letters from a Peruvian Woman&8j1; (Lettres d’une Péruvienne, 1747) by Françoise de Graffigny, as well as the “Historical introduction…&8j1; (Introduction historique aux lettres péruviennes), which was included into the novel in 1752, and where the Inca Empire is described in an idealized way. The main source of information for F. de Graffigny was “The Royal commentaries of the Incas&8j1; by Garcilaso de la Vega (1609) and other philosophical, critical and fictional publications on American natives: Michel de Montaigne’s essays, the tragedy “Alzira, or the Americans&8j1; by Voltaire, etc. The “Historical introduction...&8j1; praises the wealth and wisdom of the Incas, the merits of their state organization. This article claims that the “Historical introduction…&8j1; plays an important ideological and compositional role in F. de Graffigny’s book: a utopian description of the Inca Empire serves as a specific philosophical frame for the novel with a love story. Ideas concerning the empire of the ancient Incas, as reflected in the fictional “Letters from a Peruvian Woman&8j1;, are congenial with the Age of Enlightenment.

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s translation of Dialogues of love by Leone Ebreo. The language of Philosophy in the Renaissance

This article focuses on the importance of the notion of divine knowledge in Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s translation of the same work, and Garcilaso’s The Royal Commentaries. The Neoplatonist theory of divine knowledge, rooted in Pauline, Aristotelian and Platonic thought, held that God had imparted his sacred secrets to mankind in textual form, but only a select few would be able to understand it fully. Elements of divine knowledge were also progressively lost, it was believed, as the knowledge was passed from person to person. This shouldered translators with the great responsibility of representing divine knowledge faithfully: they thus placed high importance on close translation, but also felt it right to bend the translated text closer to their particular conception of divine truth. We will also see indications that Neoplatonist ideas of knowledge were the foundation of a political theology.*