An Erotic Beyond: SadeWhen, as a young man in postwar Paris, Octavio Paz first encountered the writings of the Marquis de Sade, his reaction was one of "astonishment and horror, curiosity and disgust, admiration and recognition." In an early poem and two subsequent essays written over a span of five decades, Paz pierces through the narrow image of Sade as pornographer and examines his work in the context of the paradox of human freedom and civilized man. He insists that Sade is worth reading, that the danger lies not in his books but in the passions of his readers. |
Contents
AN EROTIC BEYOND | 4 |
The Hospital of the Incurables | 20 |
The Innumerable Exception | 35 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
affirm ality animal sexuality annihilation Apollinaire ation Bataille become body called ceasing century chimera cism civilization Coatlicue conflicts consciousness contradiction cruel death deliriums desire destroys disappear Dominique entwine erotic act erotic game erotic imag erotic object eroticism everything evil example fate Freud Friends of Crime gesture ghosts idea illusions imaginary imitates inaccessible infinite infinity instinct invented Jean Paulhan Juliette Justine less libertine libido live lover Lucretius mankind Marquis de Sade mask masochism masochist moral nature negation never numbers obsessions OCTAVIO PAZ opposite pain paradox Parc Montsouris passions Pauline Réage Pauvert perhaps person philosophical pleasure poet principle prison psychoanalysis psychological reality reason reflect repress sacrifice Sade imagines Sade's books sadism Saint-Fond Scheherazade secret sensation sense serves sickness silence singular sion social society soft laws solitude species stinct Stoicism suffering things thought tion transparency true turn Utopia vanish victim violence word writer