Although the Marquis de Sade is often read only for his
pornography, it is important to ask why his works have claimed such
a persistent reception for the past two centuries, a reception that
has grown increasingly more astute and analytical in the past two
decades. Iwan Bloch (1872-1922), the founder of Sexualwissenschaft
or sexology, taught the 20th century to examine Sade's works in
terms of psychology and cultural anthropology in his study of 1899.
In a magisterial two-volume biography, 1952-57, Gilbert Lely laid
the foundation for every biography that has followed. Lely went on
to assemble the first critical/historical edition of Sade, his
Oeuvres completes, 16 vols., 1966-67. Alice Laborde extended Lely's
work in her three volumes on Sade's relationships, imprisonment,
and family history (1988-91). Laborde also edited Sade's letters,
Correspondances du marquis de Sade et de ses proches enrichies de
documents, notes et commentaries, 27 vols., 1991-98.The study of
Sade's literary influence commenced with Mario Praz's account of
"the Divine Marquis" (1930). Simone de Beauvoir, in "Faut-il bruler
Sade?" (1953; "Must We Burn Sade?" 1955), paved the way for
subsequent studies of Sade's relevance to gender issues and sexual
behavior. Angela Carter, in The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of
Pornography (1979) and Camille Paglia, in Sexual Personae: Art and
Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), demonstrate the
continuing ramifications of Sade's understanding of the motives of
desire. Thanks to the foundational work of Lely and Laborde, recent
commentators have been able to attend in more detail to Sade's
literary career. Neil Schaeffer, in The Marquis de Sade: A Life
(1999) addresses the logic and rhetoric of Sade's prose, his
suasory strategies to arouse, his paranoiac strategies to conceal,
his philosophy of passion, and the reason in his madness.Responding
to current trends and offering new directions, this book examines
Sade's reactions to medical theory and practice, to crime and
punishment; his attempt to craft a reciprocity of written discourse
and sexual intercourse; his involvement in the theater, both as a
playwright for the public stage, and as playwright and director for
the private theater of the insane asylum.
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