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The Marquis de Sade
799 pages
An unapologetic and exhaustive exploration of extreme human desire, framed by landmark philosophical critique.
What it feels like
Reading this collection is a plunge into the most extreme and unapologetic depths of the human imagination. The experience is steady and demanding, blending an exhaustive, systematic catalogue of sexual psychology with rigorous literary and philosophical critique. The mood is deeply transgressive and unsettling, anchored by a tone that is at once imperious, choleric, and fiercely intellectual. Framed by landmark essays that dissect the author's destructive principles and radical freedom, the text oscillates between provocative fiction and analytical reflection. It is a dark, uncompromising journey designed for readers who are fascinated by the historical boundaries of taboo, the psychology of sex, and the philosophical implications of a truly dissolute and atheistic mind.
- Mood
- transgressive
- dark
- intellectual
- unsettling
- Tone
- provocative
- unapologetic
- analytical
- extreme
- philosophical
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- psychology of sex · transgression and taboo · destructive nature · literary criticism · radical freedom
- The writing
- An exhaustive, systematic, and imperious blend of transgressive fiction and philosophical critique.
- The arc
- A descent into the extreme and unapologetic depths of human desire, framed by rigorous intellectual analysis.
- Who it's for
- Readers fascinated by the historical roots of sexual psychology, transgressive literature, and the philosophical boundaries of human freedom.
Content notes
- sexual aberrations
- eroticism
- extreme behavior
- imprisonment
About the book
"The Marquis de Sade, vilified by respectable society from his own time through ours, apotheosized by Apollinaire as "the freest spirit that has yet existed," wrote The 120 Days of Sodom while imprisoned in the Bastille. An exhaustive catalogue of sexual aberrations and the first systematic exploration-a hundred years before Krafft-Ebing and Freud-of the psychology of sex, it is considered Sade's crowning achievement and the cornerstone of his thought. Lost after the storming of the Bastille in 1789, it was later retrieved but remained unpublished until 1935. In addition to The 120 Days, this volume includes Sade's "Reflections on the Novel," his play Oxtiem, and his novella Ernestine. The selections are introduced by Simone de Beauvoir's landmark essay "Must We Burn Sade?" and Pierre Klossowski's provocative "Nature as Destructive Principle." "Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been 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."--Sade's Last Will and Testament."--from (April 19, 2011).
Description from Open Library.
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