Opinion

Letters of a Portuguese Nun

Myriam Cyr, a Canadian actress at the Royal National Theatre, was so enchanted when she first saw a play reading of Lettres d’une Religieuse Portugaise (in French) that she translated the five love letters into English in her spare time. She then asked a director friend to help her develop the English version of the play reading, which she was subsequently invited to perform at a cultural festival in New York. After the performance, an editor at a publishing house approached Cyr and asked her to write a book about the stories behind these moving letters.  

Cyr spent three years researching the relevant literature and exploring the social customs and political situations of Portugal and France more than 300 years ago, and in 2007 published Letters of a Portuguese Nun (translated into Chinese by Zhong Yujue/ Chen Xiuyun, China: Nanjing University Press, 2009).

In 1666, a Portuguese nun from a wealthy noble family met a charming French officer by chance, fell in love, was seduced and had a torrid affair. In 1669, five love letters allegedly written by the Portuguese nun to her lover were published in Paris, and the forbidden love story, with its passion and emotional intensity, immediately caused a great stir in France, with readers clamouring for copies. It even influenced later literary masters, becoming the inspiration for the 19th-century British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese and the French novelist Stendhal’s The Red and the Black.

But the most interesting question is: who was the real author of these powerful, timeless love letters? This has been debated for hundreds of years. It has even been suggested that the author was in fact the French translator Gabriel de Guilleragues (1628-1685), who allegedly forged them to curry favour with his patron, a countess, and make a small fortune. More than three hundred years later, the identity of the author is still shrouded in mystery, making it one of the most famous mysteries in literary history.

In Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Cyr confirmed through solid and detailed research that the author of the letters was in fact the Portuguese nun Marianna Alcoforado (1640-1723), and that the protagonist, the French officer Noël Bouton de Chamilly (1636-1715), did assist the Portuguese in their war against Spain. He was stationed in Mariana’s hometown of Beja from the beginning of 1666 until the end of 1667, and the five love letters were written between the end of 1667 (the first) and June 1668 (the last). By studying the many historical events, people, timelines, and places from three centuries ago, Cyr gradually uncovers the myth of one of the great literary masterpieces. With her theatrical expertise and superb writing, she tells us the story in such a subtle and touching way.

It seems that in both non-fictional and fictional historical writing, the author must have the skills of a historian and a detective, as well as great imagination and creativity. It is precisely by navigating smoothly between literary creation, archaeological excavation and logical reasoning that the author is able to open up a new world for the readers to travel through time and space, thus enhancing the literary significance and historical value of the work itself.

Joe’s Reading Life

Joe Tang

Author & Playwright

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