ENGLISH

The Marquis de Sade A Very Short Introduction

By John Phillips

Book information

Publisher
Oxford University Press, USA
Year
2005
ISBN
9780192804693, 0192804693
LCC
PQ2063.S3 P46 2005
Open Library ID
OL3439946M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
4 MB (4302517 bytes)
Series
Very Short Introductions
Pages
160\160
Topic
Education
Time added
2010-02-18 13:16:04

Description

This book introduces the Marquis de Sade as writer and philosopher to new readers, offering concise but comprehensive surveys of his most controversial works, based on contemporary theoretical approaches. The style is lively and accessible without sacrificing detail or depth. An introductory chapter discusses Sade's life and the links between that and his work. Relying on the many letters he wrote to his wife and lawyer from prison and on other authentic, contemporary evidence, it attempts to disentangle this life from the various myths that Sade's demonic reputation has engendered throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This initial chapter also reviews the critical corpus or reception of the work since Sade's times up to the present, and reassesses his status as an extra-canonical writer. The following six chapters provide broad coverage of Sade's main intellectual and creative activities, showing how all can be seen as the expression of a veritable cult of the body, a veneration of the physical, and the sexual as channels of transcendence.

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