We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,532,461.95 | Books Available: 801,366 | Members Online: 83

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - The Complete Justine: Philosophy in the Bedroom and Other Writings

The Complete Justine Philosophy in the Bedroom and Other Writings
Author: The Marquis de Sade

Simone de Beauvoir (in her essay Must we burn Sade?, published in Les Temps modernes, December 1951 and January 1952) and other writers have attempted to locate traces of a radical philosophy of freedom in Sade's writings, preceding modern existentialism by some 150 years. He has also been seen as a precursor of Sigmund Freud's psy... more »choanalysis in his focus on sexuality as a motive force. The surrealists admired him as one of their forerunners, and Guillaume Apollinaire famously called him "the freest spirit that has yet existed". *** a selection from the opening of? the essay: "Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which was never seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change." They chose to kill him, first by slow degrees in the boredom of the dungeon and then by calumny and oblivion. This latter death he had himself desired. "When the grave has been filled in, it will be sown with acorns so that eventually all trace of my tomb may disappear from the surface of the earth, just as I like to think that my memory will be effaced from the minds of men. . . ." This was the only one of his last wishes to be respected, though most carefully so. The memory of Sade has been disfigured by preposterous legends; his very name has buckled under the weight of such words as "sadism" and "sadistic." His private journals have been lost, his manuscripts burned--the ten volumes of Les Journ?es de Florbelle, at the instigation of his own son-his books banned. Though in the latter part of the nineteenth century Swinburne and a few other curious spirits became interested in his case, it was not until Apollinaire that he assumed his place in French literature. However, he is still a long way from having won it officially. One may glance through heavy, detailed works on "The Ideas of the Eighteenth Century," or even on "The Sensibility of the Eighteenth Century," without once coming upon his name. It is understandable that as a reaction against this scandalous silence Sade's enthusiasts have hailed him as a prophetic genius; they claim that his work heralds Nietzsche, Stirner, Freud, and surrealism. But this cult, founded, like all cults, on a misconception, by deifying the "divine marquis" only betrays him. The critics who make of Sade neither villain nor idol, but a man and a writer can be counted upon the fingers of one hand. Thanks to them, Sade has come back at last to earth, among us. But just what is his place? Why does he merit our interest? Even his admirers will readily admit that his work is, for the most part, unreadable; philosophically, it escapes banality only to founder in incoherence. As to his vices, they are not startlingly original; Sade invented nothing in this domain, and one finds in psychiatric treatises a profusion of cases at least as interesting as his. The fact is that it is neither as author nor as sexual pervert that Sade compels our attention: it is by virtue of the relationship which he created between these two aspects of himself.

ISBN-13: 9780394171234
ISBN-10: 0394171233
Pages: 752
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Grove Press
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Back to the Top ↑

Search - The Complete Justine: Philosophy in the Bedroom and Other Writings

Loading...