De Sade

"This is the first book to examine the cultural history of Marquis de Sade's (1740-1814) philosophical ideas and their lasting influence on political and artistic debates. An icon of free expression, Sade lived through France's Reign of Terror, and his writings offer both a pitiless mirror on humanity and a series of subversive metaphors that allow for the exploration of political, sexual, and psychological terror. Generations of avant-garde writers and artists have responded to Sade's philosophy as a means of liberation and as a radical engagement with social politics and sexual desire, writing fiction modelled on Sade's novels, illustrating luxury editions of his works, and translating his ideas into film, photography, and painting. In The Sadean Imagination, Alyce Mahon examines how Sade used images and texts as forms that could explore and dramatize the concept of terror on political, physical, and psychic levels, and how avant-garde artists have continued to engage in a complex dialogue with his works. Studying Sade's influence on art from the French Revolution through the twentieth century, Mahon examines works ranging from Anne Desclos's The Story of O, to images, texts, and films by Man Ray, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean-Jacques Lebel, and Peter Brook. She also discusses writings and responses to Sade by feminist theorists including Angela Carter and Judith Butler. Throughout, she shows how Sade's work challenged traditional artistic expectations and pushed the boundaries of the body and the body politic, inspiring future artists, writers, and filmmakers to imagine and portray the unthinkable"--

"It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others." Marquis de Sade Man of letters, philosopher, and politician, the Marquis de Sade is one of the most controversial figures since the eighteenth century, but recently psychology, theatre, cinema, and literary criticism have shed new light on his life and works. Lacoste Castle in the South of France, one of the properties of the Sade family, became the refuge of the Marquis between periods of incarceration. Thanks to the Sade family opening its archives for the first time, historian Jean-Pascal Hesse examines Sade's story through previously unpublished documents and imagery and walks in the Marquis' footsteps in his beloved chateau. AUTHOR: Originally from the region of Lacoste, historian Jean-Pascal Hesse is the author of a number of books, including 'Pierre Cardin: 60 Years of Innovation' (2010), 'Maxim's: Mirror of Parisian Life'(2011), and 'The Palais Bulles' (2012), all in close collaboration with Pierre Cardin and published by Assouline. He also serves on the Paris city council, and directs cultural events for the mayor of the 16th arrondissement.

The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade relates the story of four wealthy men who enslave 24 mostly teenaged victims and sexually torture them while listening to stories told by old prostitutes. The book was written while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille and the manuscript was lost during the storming of the Bastille. Sade wrote that he "wept tears of blood" over the manuscript's loss. Many consider this to be Sade crowing acheivement.

In 1775, the young Count de Sade decided to turn a flight from legal trouble into an opportunity to undertake the "grand tour." He transformed his sojourns in Florence, Rome, Naples, and their environs into a philosophical travelogue; alongside advice on where to go and what to see, his Journey to Italy would include analyses of local customs and institutions, history and politics, natural phenomena, and the development of the arts. For today’s readers, Journey to Italy provides remarkable portraits of major Italian cities and the surrounding countryside, vivid accounts of aristocratic and popular entertainments, and a clear sense of what it was like to be a tourist in eighteenth-century Italy – from scams, rough roads, and unreliable guidebooks to learned interlocutors, balls, and nights at the opera. We witness Sade learning about the lives of Roman emperors, the machinations and misdeeds of pontiffs, the power struggles of the Medici, the ancient libertine world revealed by the excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and a host of artistic examples and cultural practices – the material he would soon metamorphose into trenchant satire, gothic horror, and violent sexual fantasy. This book presents the first English translation of Sade’s unfinished and unpolished Journey to Italy along with his extensive dossiers of notations, sketches, plans, and correspondence. The translation is accompanied by extensive explanatory annotations and preceded by a critical introduction that provides biographical, artistic, historical, and intellectual context for Sade’s fascinating project, connecting his travels in and writings about Italy to his later famous and controversial works.

Since their publication, the works of the Marquis de Sade have challenged the reading public with a philosophy of relentless physical transgression. This is the first book-length academic study by a single author that applies the philosophy of the Marquis de Sade to the analysis of a wide array of film texts. By employing Sade’s controversial body-oriented philosophy within film analysis, this book provides a new understanding of notions of pain, pleasure, and the representation of the transgressive body in film. Whereas many analyses have used theory to excuse and thus dilute the power of sexual and violent images, the author has here sought to examine cinematic representations of human relations as unflinchingly as Sade did in his novels.

The Marquis de Sade is famous for his forbidden novels like Justine, Juliette, and the 120 Days of Sodom. Yet, despite Sade's immense influence on philosophy and literature, his work remains relatively unknown. His novels are too long, repetitive, and violent. At last in The Philosophy of the Marquis de Sade, a distinguished philosopher provides a theoretical reading of Sade. Airaksinen examines Sade's claim that in order to be happy and free we must do evil things. He discusses the motivations of the typical Sadean hero, who leads a life filled with perverted and extreme pleasures, such as stealing, murder, rape, and blasphemy. Secondary sources on Sade, such as Hobbes, Erasmusm, and Brillat-Savarin are analyzed, and modern studies are evaluated. The Philosophy of the Marquis de Sade greatly enhances our understanding of Sade and his philosophy of pain and perversion.

Rare two-volume translation of Marquis de Sade's titillating and shocking writing. Adorned with gripping cover art and translated by renowned scholar Paul J. Gillette, this dramatic collection includes Justine, Juliette, 120 Days of Sodom and Philosophy in the Bedroom. No other edition captures so purely the drama of de Sade's forays into human sexuality. This author, who has now become as famous as his writing was considered shocking was a forbear of many theories and philosophies, all of which can be found within the pages of The Complete Marquis de Sade.

A detailed, analytical study of the life and times of this brilliant but bizarre personality (and the sexually erotic times he lived in), containing the essence of all his writings, based on research by Bloch in private archives of the French Government, and Bloch's discovery of de Sade's unpublished manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom in Marseilles. The work contains a precis of the 120 Days of Sodom, the first attempt systematically to catalog and describe abnormal sexual behavior -- 100 years before Krafft-Ebing. A serious academic study of France during de Sade's time, its sexual morality, de Sade's works, and the role of sadism in literature, etc., this biography precedes de Beauvoir's Faut-il Brule de Sade? and began the resuscitation and modern study of De Sade. The author Iwan Bloch, a German physician, won a distinguished name in the world of science in the fields, of medical history and anthropology.