Sade As A Didact: Narrative Strategies by sergio zenere

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III Sergio Zenere

SADE AS DIDACT: NARRATIVE STRATEGIES Sergio Zenere

ISBN 978-1-312-78088-0

University of Exeter

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III Department of Lifelong Learning December 2008 ABSTRACT

This study discusses selected aspects of a few non-obscene works of de Sade in order to understand why and how does narrative take the shape or masquerade as folk tales or eye-witness accounts in Aline et Valcour (1795) and a few stories from the anthologies Historiettes, contes et

fabliaux [ 'Dorci', 'L'époux corrigé', 'La chastelaine de Longeville', 'Le président mystifié' ](1788) and Les crimes de l'amour ['Florville et Courval'] (1800). Without paying allegiance to any one individual theory, suggestions from Freud, Benjamin, Brooks, Lacan and Aristotle -among othersare put to work to examine the way Sade -a partisan of the strictest realism- proceeds to get the main point(s) of his political and philosophical message across to his reader, in a sea of commonplace eighteenth-century 'literary proper' ( roman sensible, romanesque ) and discourse (

philosophie, physiocratie etc ). Motific suggestions ( for example the deliverance of the virgin; the initiatory journey in the realm of the physical, the mystical and the allegorical ) and their immemorial utopian genesis are also examined, for they recur in 'proper' political science and are routinely exploited and perverted to the advantage of Sade's peculiar world view: helpless mankind inhabits a hectic universe at the mercy of an unconcerned 'invisible hand' (in turn identified with nature, fate or providence ) whose only ethic is highly situational. This merciless 'invisible hand' applies its ruthless maieutic to bring about purgation (catharsis) in its victim(s) throughout a

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III lengthy process of recognition (anagnorisis) that unfolds like a detective story, with actors taking part in it both consciously and unconsciously; the end result is very rarely, if at all, positive for the 'victims' and typically leads to their ultimate demise.

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III TABLE OF CONTENTS Title page

Abstract

Table of Contents

Introduction

Narrating is never innocent

In search of authority

The deliverance of the virgin

The (initiatory) journey

What Sade really wants

The cathartic value of an uncanny detective story

Anagnorisis

Conclusion

Bibliography

Author's declaration

End notes

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III DISSERTATION *°

INTRODUCTION

This study considers particular aspects of the nature and goals of conveying a political and philosophical message (or otherwise socially relevant meaning ) through stories and related narrative as Sade employs them in a few selected works of his. These works are chosen among Sadeani works to better reflect the diversity of the non-obscene corpus, namely Aline et Valcour (1795), some stories from the anthologies ^ Historiettes, contes et fabliaux (1788) and Les crimes de

l'amour (1800). One of the above works is explicitly didactic in nature ( Aline et Valcour ou le roman philosophique ), while others follow in the footsteps of traditional folk tales with -at timesa didactic subtitleii: I. 'Florville et Courval' has been retained from Les crimes de l'amour; II. 'Dorci', III. 'L'époux corrigé', IV. 'La chastelaine de Longeville' and V. 'Le président mystifié' are four tales chosen from Historiettes, contes et fabliaux.

The study begins [ section “Narrating is never innocent” ] with a statement to the effect that narrative does betray or signal the author's fears, allegiance and biases, whether explicit or implicit, malicious or sincere, in a number of ways: there is no such thing as an 'innocent' narrative, and 'controversial' examples from our recent past may help to show why it is appropriate Unless otherwise specified, all translations into English are my own, and shall be taken as free (and not conventional ) translations. It shall also be noted that some French typographical signs may be missing. ° The typographical signs “” and '' are used for two different purposes here. The sign “” indicates quotes from a text, while the sign '' indicates emphasis on my part to mean “so called” or “so to speak”. ^ First publication dates for these two anthologies are not the same for everybody; I found different dates listed. *

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III to approach Sade's narrative that way, concluding how such narrative was -indeed- as 'insensitive' and 'controversial' in the eighteenth century as certain contemporary topics are these days. The study proceeds [ “In search of authority” ] examining how Sade put considerable effort into finding the right form of authority to lend more credibility to his own message. Storytelling provides the broadest framework; philosophie, burgeoning political economy and anthropology provide the main lines of argumentation, while folklore or eye-witness accounts provide a 'Trojan horse' to circumvent distrust in the reader, thus facilitating identification and acceptance. The role that the marquis' pedanticism and mythomania play is also briefly introduced, to help make sense of the great scheme of things. What critics think of Sade's narrative devices of choice comes next: no consensus exists on the nature of folklore, nor on the dependability of fictional(ized) accounts masquerading as eye-witness accounts or folklore; today's examples ( a famous commercial novelist and an acclaimed anthropologist ) are used to show how -in spite of some due diligence- such accounts may very well turn out to be no more than hoaxes: no better fate befell Sade. The desire to find an answer to the conundrum of human existence is explored and concepts are mentioned, ranging from the 'broad brush' of Enlightenment to 'radical cultural pluralism' and to the immemorial and utopian genesis of eye-witness and folklore accounts similar to Sade's; not even political science escapes the attraction that utopia exerts, as the French and other Revolutions show. The thoughts of Walter Benjamin and Freud are furthermore used to shape some considerations related to Sade, political science and utopia. The next topic [ section “The deliverance of the virgin”] considers one of the immemorial motifs of Utopian genesis that the 6

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III marquis utilizes and thus perverts: the deliverance of the virgin. How the perversion of the topos unfolds in Sade's works is subsequently examined: the doom of the virgin. The following topic examines the immemorial topos of the journey in its initiatory function and Sade's unorthodox approach; the pivotal role that peregrinations and misfortunes occupy in Sade's cosmology and cosmogony, allowing actors to understand what mankind is all about, in a hectic universe governed by a merciless 'invisible hand' in turn called nature, fate or providence that epitomizes the clutch of an ethos that is highly situational. The following section [“What Sade really wants”] examines Sade's idea of what a 'good novel' ought to be like and his allegiance to the strictest realism. Not devoid of contradictions, Sade's message revolves around a composite mixture of eighteenthcentury commonplace topoi, autobiographic suggestions and aristocratic counter-culture; besides eighteenth-century literary proper, Sade's work exhibits marked aristocratic nostalgia for disused lifestyles that help explain his approach to certain topics, including the one of the journey. The concepts of recognition and purgation and their unfolding in Sade are then introduced [“The cathartic value of an uncanny detective story”]; literature is examined to come to a better understand of catharsis (purgation) and some thoughts of Freud's are utilized for the purpose. Recognition comes next [section “Anagnorisis”] and its often uncanny nature is explored. Sade's actors are always at the mercy of fate, and often participate in a detective story whose outcome and resulting knowledge or reminiscence will change the actor and the world s-he inhabits forever; very often the results of the ruthless maieutic fate applies acting as a merciless psychologist can have disastrous or lethal effects: some suggestions gathered from Poe's 'Purloined Letter' and from 7

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III Lacan's seminary on the same are applied to the topic at hand.

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III NARRATING IS NEVER INNOCENT

It is clear that Sade wants to make sure readers will not miss the point he is making, and in order to do so he borrows from any source he thinks most suitable for that purpose. In fact, beyond romanesqueiii, roman sensibleiv and eighteenth-century 'literary proper' in matters of style, there is the structure of ages old folk tales and utopia, whose ancestral authority and repertory Sade thoroughly ransacks. The marquis thus assembles a repertory ( philosophie, burgeoning anthropology, travel literature, folk tales... ) to lend higher credibility to his own thought, in turn dominated by self-serving pleas and eighteenth-century aristocratic counter-culture.

“Narrating is never innocent” (Brooks 1994:77 ). Literary rendition of pleas sympathetic to -very broadly put- a certain cause, or simple accounts of events, or any idea soever loose their innocence, as Schopenhauer aptly showsv, the very moment any writer tries to convey meaning in writing: choice of words, thought patterns, figures of speech and so forth betray biases, fears, situational ethics, allegiances; contemporary examples may make this point very clear if we examine how this may unfold in the writing of present day's eminent scholars. Paul Fussell, in his famous The great war and modern memory (1975) spends considerable efforts dissecting 'official' WWI narratives, documenting how the image of the enemy (Germany) as unparalleled evil, threat and so forth had been the brainchild of – or if we prefer: had been doctored/massaged by - skilled propaganda spin doctors who had literally blown reality out of proportion vi, engineered hoaxes, then fed the same to the masses to psych them up throughout World-War One. Fussell wants to 9

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III document and validate the duplicity of power as general truth; he then suddenly proceeds to turn his explanation of choice upside down vii (or inside out ) when facing World-War Two viii. Something similar enough happens in the writings of Hayden White, albeit on a higher intellectual level. Convinced -as a general standpoint- that there can be different narrative approaches to describe - on different wavelengths- a single event or situation (emplotment), White makes an exception when WWII is concerned ix. Philosopher Stueber (n.d) is tempted by the comparison between what happened to Jewry -on one hand- and to Germans displaced x from eastern German territories during -or

as a result of- WWII on the other; in the end he refers to the same

comparison -which in his words historian Hillgruber had attempted - as â&#x20AC;&#x153; infelicitous -...- [it] has to be rejected as containing factual inaccuracies, as being insensitive and even politically dangerous within the political context of the present Germany.â&#x20AC;&#x153; (n.d:19). On the other hand, Puw Davies (2002) shows that there are comic versions of the Bluebeard tale, rooted in the historical case of fifteenth-century torturer and mass-murderer xi Gilles de Rais, Joan of Arc's lieutenant and among the wealthiest and most powerful noblemen in France; Fussell himself names among the antecedents of WWI war poetry no other than satire of circumstances (1975:3ss) and discusses the satiric component of said poetry. At the sunset of the cold war (Miller 1988) it was still possible (and even 'politically opportune' ) to denounce (in a way very similar to Fussell's ) USSR bred and spread hoaxes and massive disinformation targeting the USA xii, casting aside grotesque examples from our most recent years. Anachronism set aside, it is important to understand how Sade's narrative was never innocent and his arguments were as 'politically dangerous' and 'insensitive' in 10

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III the eighteenth century as the topics cited above may be today, no matter how nonsensical or ridiculous the modern reader may find them, because every epoch's psyche is haunted by 'official narratives' ( accredited by the regime of the day ) and events worth of hysterical debate and ongoing, circular memorialization.

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III IN SEARCH OF AUTHORITY

“This is the argumentum ad verecundiam. It consists in making an appeal to authority rather than reason, and in using such an authority as may suit the degree of knowledge possessed by your opponent.” (Schopenhauer 2004:16 xiii): lessons are better learnt when imparted within the framework of known and accepted traditional authority: since folk tales have been conscripted to serve both Nazism and Communism xiv in the twentieth century, it is not surprising that Sade resorts to their ancestral appeal and authority to lend more credibility to his expedient stories masquerading as such to accredit polemic arguments:” In other words the familiar framework and format of the fairy tale were used to circumvent distrust and to facilitate identification” (Fitzgerald 2006:13). Sade's endorsement of traditional storytelling in his literary manifesto is unambiguous xv :

Les troubadours parurent ensuite; et quoiqu'on doive les regarder, plutôt comme des poètes que comme des romanciers, la multitude de jolis contes qu'ils composèrent en prose, leur obtiennent cependant avec juste raison, une place parmi les écrivains dont nous parions. Qu'on jette, pour s'en convaincre, les yeux sur leurs fabliaux, écrits en langue romane, sous le règne de Hugues Capet, et que l'Italie copia avec tant d'empressement.(Sade 1800, n.p ) As a matter of fact, Sade is extremely concerned with finding the right authority to support his claim of the moment and readily adapts to follow its lead (Dolan 1986:310): folk tales; travel diariesxvi; geopolitical utopiasxvii; burgeoning anthropology, political economyxviii and so forth. The reason is very simple: 'trusted' accounts validated throughout the ages (Benjamin 1936:1 xix) or learnt from eye-witnesses are typically more persuasive than the tirades of a lunatic inmate of less 12

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III than reassuring past demeanor. Besides, storylistening might induce (Sturm 2000) a trance-like sensation in the hearer, which might work in favor of the 'Trojan horse' ingredient; LĂŠonore and Sainville both tell their story to their acquaintances; Florville demands to tell her story in her own words, and so forth. It may also be argued how storytelling may eventually satisfy the 'need to say everything' typical of Sade (Phillips 2002-2003), in a sort of psychoanalytic transference (Gayard 2002 ).

This brings the issue up of Sade's pedanticism (Hayes 1989:30 xx), mythomania and plagiarism; although widely learned, Sade amply recurred to 'literary indebtedness' - as thoroughly documented by Jean Deprun and others- in spite of his protestations to the contrary xxi. From Kant to Victor de Mirabeau xxii; from Raynal's proto-anti-colonialism xxiii to the critique of city life ( opposed to country life ), luxury etc, down to concoctions in the realm of constitutional theory, political economy, biology, we find in Sade a whole inventory of eighteenth century's most current and controversial topics and utterances. Typically, the most important concepts and utterances are repeated in a circular, obsessive fashion and the same conclusion is reached from different starting points: for example he may argue in favor of women's sexual profligacy because the authority of their fathers makes no sense; or because it would amount to a double standard in favor of men to do otherwise; because such is the legacy of (meta)historical accounts depicting exotic civilizations; because male lovers should value their women's pleasure as much as their own; because doing so results in better relationships; because situational ethics so commands, and so forth. The above

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III compounds with Sade's mythomania, overly exaggerated claims to fame xxiv, fascination with propheciesxxv, and so forth.

Critics are divided on the 'real' meaning/purpose (thus on the level of effectiveness ) of such literary devices and on the truthfulness and dependability of the same. Let's examine folk tales, for example: Lipson (2001) argues that the Grimms' fairy tales were fertile ground for and precursors to Nazi racism and antisemitism, while Fitzgerald (2006:13 xxvi) mentions how such tales were easily absorbed to serve USSR's cultural goals. In turn, some argue about the immemorial Indo-European origin of folk tales (Folk Tales, 1875; Fitzgerald 2006 ); some argue in favor of their eminently cross-cultural nature (Jobling 2001), or their universality ( Roberts 1963 ), while others (Zipes 2008) see folk tales as coded messages to pass on cultural values related to mating habits (in Zipes' examples ) or to “ obedience training and cultural complexity” ( Roberts 1963:198 ).

No consensus exists on the dependability of Sade's fictional(ized) travel diaries or anthropological accounts, either, in spite of some due diligence on his part (for example sending out field questionnaires and/or extensive background reading). To examine the only example of the extended digressions in Aline et Valcour (the African dystopia of Butua and the eutopiaxxvii of Tamoè in the Southern Seas ), Mercier appreciates Sade's

“ care for documentation and an

attentiveness to exactitude” (1969:342-343) with minor reservations; Gallouet (2005:70) refers to Sade's Africa as “imaginary”xxviii and Beach (1980:61 ) claims that Sade “tells us nothing about eighteenth-century Africa “, while elsewhere Mercier refers to Sade's depictions as “[merely] 14

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III conventional” (Mercier 1969:351 ). Equally, consensus is not reached among scholars about how based on facts Sade's chronicles might have been: Miller (1983:25 ) adopts an “orientalist” approach and claims that “ Even in the presence of empirical knowledge, Africa and things African are a privileged locus of lags, breaches, delays and failures in understanding and knowledge “; Dolan (1986:305) writes that “ Butua was not by any means an invented country; it appears on maps made in France early in the 18th century “ and Mercier (1969:342-343 ) forms a similar judgment. Gallouet (2005:69) and Beach (1980:59 ) are skeptical about the presence of significant knowledge of Africa, while Beach labels as “pure coincidence” some of Sade's anthropological accounts that might be confirmed, such as the existence of the cult of snakes. For some critics (Dolan 1986:306) such descriptions are mere allegories (for example “The Serpent himself, the serpent of Old Testament fame” ) or literary devices (Lanni 2004, no page ) xxix. Other critics see mainly extended figures of speech (metonymy, see Fink in L'Esprit Créateur, 1975: 404 ) xxx and stereotypes (Sauvage 2006 ). Many consider Sade's choice merely expedient, for he knew nobody would come back with first-hand knowledge to contradict him (Dolan 1986:309xxxi; Perol 2002:233xxxii ).

What matters here is that such accounts are untrustworthy: ” The desire for Prester John is the desire for an Other who is a perfect reflection or fulfillment of yourself“ (Miller 1983:79 ). Whether fruit of mere fantasy, phantasy, deeper psychological disturbances or the deeply ingrained quest for otherness and the supernatural, even 'serious' travel diaries detailing State-sponsored explorations mingle known kingdoms with imaginary ones (for example Prester John's ) when

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III learned scribes claim to have 'personally visited' all of them (Miller 1983:81-82 ).

The above point has to be taken very seriously, and two contemporary examples may help to prove it. Some readers might think that Sade basically 'cheats' and (ab)uses (pseudo)anthropology, narrative and stories as expedient Trojan horses to lend credibility to his own message: if so, his case is not unique. What do Alexander Haley and Margaret Mead have in common? Apparently very little: Haley was the author of best-selling and cult/opinion-leading book Roots (1976), while Mead was an acclaimed anthropologist, thus an entertainer (Haley) and a scientist (Mead). Readers should not underestimate the influence that Haley's and Mead's work exerted on the society at large and within the scientific community (Mead). Haley's work seemed to appear at the very peak of a surge in what popular culture calls 'blaxploitation' xxxiii and as a very handy addition to the salad bar of identities the African community was helping itself to. Beside a court case for plagiarismxxxiv, Wright (1981) argues that -in spite of some due diligence- Haley had been feeding his readers a hoax when he had trusted 'encyclopaedic informants':

It was in this regard that Haley was directed to Fofana. Haley was seeking his ancestry in the Gambia. He told his history to at least eight people, who undoubtedly told it to others, and who went out looking for someone to provide Haley what he wanted. It is not surprising they found Fofana. It is likely they could have found others, perhaps real griots to recite roughly the same story. (Wright 1981:211). Much the same can be said about Mead's field trips and investigations (Martin 2006): Margaret Mead's 1928 proto-feminist and proto-liberationist scholarly account of Samoan society would

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III amount to a hoax, since her 'encyclopaedic informants' had apparently told her what she wanted to hearxxxv. So both the bestselling male, black commercial novelist mongering African consciousness and the brilliant, white female scholar mongering feminist liberation were feeding their readers ( 'oppressed' African groups in seek of an identity; 'oppressed' women burning their brassières in the 'swinging Ninety-sixties' ) no other thing than a pro domo hoax. This seemingly unrelated digression still brings us back to Sade because “Margaret Mead's research in Samoa largely replicates the findings of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in Tahiti. (Martin 2006:145) “: Bougainville was one of Sade's main sources, thus if Sade 'fell for it', he is in the good company of opinion-leading researchers and novelists:

It was American anthropology itself, rather than any Samoan adolescent, that was the chief source of the legend of the serial sexual adventuress. The disciplinary paradigm presided over by Franz Boas presupposed radical cultural pluralism; and Mead, under the heading of Samoan sexuality, seemed to provide all the evidence it needed, a clinching case. (Martin 2006:145). The Enlightenment was known to seek general solutions for general problems (or to see problems as general phenomena), in a rather simplistic way (Lovejoy 1936:9-10 xxxvi), in opposition to Romanticism ( Lovejoy 1936:293xxxvii); the 'broad brush' of Enlightenment and “radical cultural pluralism”xxxviii co-exist in Sade with traits typical of later tendencies, such as Romanticism:”it was in conformity with his emotional, fiery, and uncritical temperament, as well with the romantic way of life, to sense hidden demonic forces everywhere and to exaggerate expression to the point of melodrama (Auerbach 1972:482)”: it does not really matter if such demonic forces are 17

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III epitomized -in Sade's obscene production- by the discharge or ingestion of bodily fluids or waste, by acrobatic orgies, bottomless sexual appetites and so forth.

Escapism, philosophy and policy making may even merge for centuries in the quest for the mythical, exotic Christian kingdom of “prester John”, whose alliance was sought to avert the Muslim invasion and impending takeover dreaded during the Middle Ages and beyond; Sade was not alone in dreaming of exotic locations and fantasy kingdoms: utopia and radical cultural pluralism go hand in hand. The line between a folk tale (or folklore in general ) with its utopian genesis and such travel accounts is very thin: in my opinion it only amounts to the fact that folklore is perceived as immemorial legacy more akin to a riddle than a recipe, whereas utopia (broadly speaking) is the portrayal of 'other' worlds (customs, etc) that are easily recognized as fictional, otherworldly, a blueprint to invigorate political protest or action, or a mixture of all that. As a matter of fact, Sade's non-obscene andragogy -as 'divine' Zamè unambiguously expounds itclosely matches that of nineteenth-century philanthropist, industrialist and influential socialist xxxix and activist Robert Owenxl. Oftentimes folk tales and utopia take the form of travel diaries, journeys and so forth masquerading as forensic accounts; in any case (Sade, Mead, Haley) such accounts are very likely perverted or prostituted to the advantage of 'political' agendas xli.

Readers may at this point eye askance the high demand such untrustworthy accounts have always been in: the simple reason is that they 'work' and the public loves them. Even political science does not resist the spell of such highly symbolic narratives xlii. The French revolution tried 18

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III to cross the border to the fairy land of utopia not only with 'progressive' laws or with Terreur, but with collective rituals and the subversion of customary time-keeping xliii: the abolition of the ancient calendar; decimal timexliv; décades in place of weeksxlv; new titles and salutations; new religions; new names from other revolutions: Saint-Petersburg becomes Leningrad xlvi, Koenigsberg becomes Kaliningrad, Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe, Salisbury becomes Harare; Congo becomes Zaire, then Congo once more. All those devices recur -as narrative devices- in science fiction narratives, that is the 'merely entertaining' version of utopia/folklore; readers may have difficulties parting the real world once it has been 'revolutionized' from goofy fictional 'nowheres' such as Francis Galton's “Kantsaywhere” and “Dunno Weir”. Walter Benjamin xlvii (1936:1ss) is pessimist about the dichotomy between the novel (=modernity), commercial literature and conventional storytelling:

It teaches us that the art of storytelling is coming to an end. -...-. More and more often there is embarrassment all around when the wish to hear a story is expressed. It is as if something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us: the ability to exchange experiences -...- experience has fallen in value -...- For never has experience been contradicted more thoroughly than strategic experience by tactical warfare, economic experience by inflation, bodily experience by mechanical warfare, moral experience by those in power. still novelist Sade expressly accepts bards as his forefathers.

Freudxlviii suggestsxlix the analogy between child play and day-dreaming and creative writing in adults; I would go farther and compare Marx's l statement:” while -...- communist society

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III -...- makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic â&#x20AC;&#x153; (Marx in Rosen 1999:345 li ) with very similar (if not identical ) statements from utopian lii thinkers like Fourier, whose antecedents are represented by no other thing than -say- the stereotypical day of disciples in Pythagorean communities. Although Marx held utopian thinkers in contempt, the similarity with role plays among children is striking: a child may play games that involve the same bizarre sequence of activities. The societal response to such extremely similar thought patterns could not differ more: children are treated with condescension; Fourier exerted a noteworthy -albeit limited- influence; Marx conceived a plan of such thoroughness, audacity and self-importance (self-referred to as 'scientific' in opposition to 'irrational' utopian and 'useless' classic socialism ) to dispute the intellectual domination of Christianity, capitalism and related thought patterns: countless regimes have expressly taken Marx as model, irrespective of the fact that Marx would (or would not) have approved the results. Condescension, mere curiosity and fanatic devotion that has costed the world several millions human lives...children plays, Charles Fourier, Karl Marx...nearly identical starting point: why such different degrees of success is matter of speculation.

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III THE DELIVERANCE OF THE VIRGIN

“One is surprised that comparative mythology should have looked so indefatigably to meteorological phenomena for the explanation of such an immediate and perpetual motif as the deliverance of the virgin, which is the oldest of literary motifs and one which can never grow antiquated” (Huizinga 1972:76-77): this explains the epidemic success of contemporary productions like Star Warsliii, while none should forget that The lord of the rings suite of books was heavily 'inspired' by (and borrowed from) Arthurian and Germanic legends ( for example the

Nibelungenlied saga ); if such narratives can still generate business and fandom worth billions today, we can cast anachronism aside and understand why Sade loved them so much.

The deliverance of the virgin is another motif that Sade thoroughly perverts: Aline is a virtuous virgin whom Valcour, Déterville and Madame de Blamont try in vain to deliver. Although it is a matter of speculation whether her virginity might have survived the first moments together with Sainville, Léonore is portrayed as another virgin who is delivered and captured many times, and whose struggle to preserve her sexual and bridal integrity gives raise to her histoire. Honest M. de Saint-Prast delivers virgin mademoiselle de Florville by sending her away to kill rumors liv, but the deliverance turns to her utmost disadvantage not once, but three times, chez libertine madame

de Verquin the first time, chez pious Madame de Lérince the second time and her final doom unfolds chez monsieur de Courval. Le comte de Dorci delivers a young peasant girl by proxy, by delivering her innocent father, thus causing his own brother's death. Le président de Fontanis is set 21

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III free from the dungeon of the marquis' castle only after further abuse and the official renunciation to his much younger wife mademoiselle de TĂŠroze, who had been the lover of le comte d'ElbĂ¨ne for a long time; it is interesting to note that the whole story revolves around de Fontanis' hope to consummate his marriage with a bride he naively thinks a virgin, always frustrated by some new mishap, prank or assault of grotesque flavour, among which laxatives, ice baths, 'rigged' toilets and so forth.

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III THE (INITIATORY) JOURNEY

The very idea of novels detailing travels/peregrinations/adventures as precursory to

Bildungsroman is as old as man. Traveling to exotic, far away places encompasses all sorts of overt or symbolic meanings and follows in the steps of a trail the pre-Socratics ( for example Parmenides, V-IV century B.C ) had once blazed, with opinion-leading followers in the Church theologians and later in chivalric literature and poets such as Dante and others. The main character(s) typically undergo a series of trials and must face obstacles of all sorts in the realm of the physical, the mystical and the allegorical and -like Parmenides- reach in the end (or are granted/awarded ) an infinitely deeper level of knowledge and are oftentimes allowed to return home with 'divine' spoilslv. Albert Borgmannlvi (1992:14) portrays modernity very much in terms of an achieved utopia: â&#x20AC;&#x153;More precisely, we can say that the mobilized and hyperactive society exhibits three features that need to be examined: the suspension of civility, the role of the vanguard, and the subordination of civiliansâ&#x20AC;?. Borgmann writes about rugged individuals, pioneers, lumberjacks and the like, who kept Bacon's promise of finding scientific and progressive ways of taming the environment to the benefit of mankind. Well, those pioneers, cowboys, rugged individuals who colonized the wild west and -to name just one achievement- who were behind transcontinental railroads, were actually living the utopia: bizarre landscapes, impervious ravines, canyons, cascades, the gold rush, hostile 'primitives', alcohol, prostitutes, gunfights, foundation of new countries, Lynch and Jim Crow's laws. The general public is likely to kowtow once again to the 'divine' 23

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III intellectual who has survived the journey through the desert of the human condition and has brought back yet another set of tablets of stone with the heavenly answer to human concerns, much like traditional storytelling had attempted in much less explicit ways lvii: the law is given (...once more) to the 'chosen' of the day: Israel, the proletariat, the faithful...Of course -according to Benjamin (1936:3-4) – novels or similar accounts 'explain too much', and thorough explanation 'kills' traditional storytelling/narrative lviii that prospers in a world where openness plays a bigger role.

The motif of the journey is also perverted in Sade: first, it is not necessary to venture that far at times; characters in 'Dorci', 'Florville et Courval', 'Le président mystifié', 'La chastelaine de Longeville', 'L'époux corrigé' do not travel to faraway lands. What matters is that after the journey the actors and the world they inhabit will no longer be the same: Louison and Colas ( in 'La chastelaine de Longeville' ) only travel from their village to the castle in order to have an affair with their adulterous seigneurs, yet at the end of the journey Louison finds abduction and murder by drowning, while Colas finds exile.

The marquis is convinced that the amount of one's peregrinations and thus misfortunes determines one's level of philosophie; for Léonore peregrinations and philosophie go hand in hand (Sade 1795-1:926). Nevertheless, not everybody is allowed to benefit/profit from such newly acquired wisdom: Florville commits suicide whereas shocked Courval turns to piety; Dorci, embittered and shocked, retires in solitude; madame and monsieur de Longeville turn to 24

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III monogamy leaving their adulterous past behind; Robin president de Fontanis and M. de Bernac learn a lesson the hard way about double standards ( 'L'époux corrigé' ) and about how superior

noblesse d'épée is to noblesse de robelix ( 'Le président mystifié' ) in these terms: “[la noblesse d'épée est ]si au-dessus de vous [robins] à toute sorte d'égards -...-. [les nobles d'épée sont des] gens de la première noblesse qui tiennent à toute la France, et vous n'êtes qu'un malheureux robin provençal, sans nom comme sans crédit, sans état comme sans considération “. Robe perverts Sade's theology, and his hatred and despisement portray that class as something against the natural order and the nemesis of philosophie, in spite of the fact that most of his magistrates are consummated libertine criminals, and libertine criminals typically receive good press as accomplished philosophes.

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III WHAT SADE REALLY WANTS

Before advancing considerations on how Sade concretely shapes the literary/fictionalized version of his political/philosophical message, it is important to state briefly what this message might be. The background is provided by philosophie and eighteenth-century broad 'literary proper', but the bulk underneath is a proprietary mixture of aristocratic counter-culture, selfserving pleas and (auto)biographical allusions, which is Sade's only original contribution if we take into account his propensities for 'literary indebtedness'. In literature Reuland (2003:32 ) calls Sade basically a plagiarist; Sauvage (2006:97) claims much the same lx. Dolan (1986:303,310) mentions “remarkable literary debt”, and goes as far as suggesting that Sade literally imitates his sources' stylelxi, besides borrowing from them; Schorderet (2004:64) writes about repeated falsification of historical factslxii; for Terasse (1989, n.p ), Sade “copies and pillages” the works of other authors. In his literary manifesto Idée sur les romanslxiii, Sade took sides in a raging debate that was as old as literature itself: the divide concerning what is proper representation and realism and what is not: “Hobbes's Answer to Davenant [1651]-...- has the cadence and finality of a critical manifesto. The structure of a poem, he says, ought to be 'such as an imitation of humane life requireth,' (Abrams 1953:267)lxiv “ and “ Poetry must imitate the external world as it is; must represent -...- the kinds of objects that we know to exist, and the kinds of events that we know to be possible, on the basis of an empirical knowledge of nature and nature's laws” (ibid). It's not possible to adequately analyze Sade's thought and its triggers and antecedents within the scope of 26

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III this study, however readers should note that his idea is that journeys and misfortunes help people understand what mankind is all about, in its fragile existence under the merciless rule of hectic nature that -to borrow his own example- akin to a volcano either erupts precious stones to delight people, or fireballs to annihilate them lxv. Novels -Sade claims – ought to portray real-life excess and vices in the most glaring terms 'right as they are', in order to trigger a sort of cathartic effect able to serve the cause of virtue, in spite of the authorship of the libertine/'sadist' novel Justine (1791), which Sade disavowslxvi. Sade -in his theorization of what a good novel ought to be like- first praises his times for the daring ( “ à l'example des Titans “ Sade 1800, no page ) advancements made in the realm of philosophy and self-awareness, then concludes with the rhetoric question: “l'homme du dix-huitième siècle, en un mot, est-il donc celui du onzième” (Sade 1800, n.p). It is important here to mind what is Sade's way of understanding human existence in the broader context of the universe: human life is intended as worthless appendage and consequence of primordial appetites (for example sexual urges, whence procreation ) at the mercy of an 'invisible hand' that goes by the name of nature, providence lxvii, fate or all of them, under the merciless gaze of unconcerned heavens, in a universe whose only ethics is highly situational.

Of course, Sade's inconsistency may be brought up against him: in personal letters from prison (Sade 1993:4) in 1779 he wrote:” I only write for my wife, who reads my writing very well no matter how bad it be. Those who without any warrant, and without any right, want to shove their noses into this writing you don't like if they are not pleased with it can g- f-”. Of course no

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III statement could be more misleading, given the judicial trouble Sade went through to actually print his works; and why would he have gone to such lengths, if not to share his message with the general public? Besides, Aline et Valcour was expressly engineered as the marquis' proficiency test to bring him public recognition among hommes de lettres.

It is not possible here to explain this subject in detail, but it can be suggested that Sade argues from an aristocratic point of view – in spite of apparently making fun of 'people of the Eleventh century'- as member of noblesse d'épée and thus 'enemy' of noblesse de robe. The terms

noblesse de robe and noblesse d'épée designate two intermingled, interlocked but very dissimilar halves of nobility. Robe, as the term explains, identifies nobility mostly serving the crown in the financial or judicial branches of the public administration;

Epée designates nobility entirely

grounded in ancestry and peerage and typically serving in the military. Robins were basically civil servants who 'owned' their position through the Ancien Régime's system of selling positions (granting nobility) for money to wealthy commoners; Sade's personal judiciary troubles only compound with the common aristocratic hatred of robe, considered a class of ignoble usurpers. In what is often referred to as “pre-revolution”, parliaments lxviii and robe gave common currency to and started to preach ideas that -although far from nihilism and maximalism that will soon dominate the upcoming revolution- still flirted with popular discontent and fueled hopes of (relatively) radical reforms while exposing and denouncing in glamorous terms pitfalls and inconsistencies in the state of affairs under the catchy names of despotism and overpowering

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III ministries. Massively excluded from election to revolutionary assemblies (that saw basse robelxix on the raise ), haute robelxx helped considerably with making the event possible; high nobility -on the other hand- had been very politically active as well, with much less fortune than robe, though. Unfortunately, critics pay scant attention to Sade's aristocratic allegiance, preferring explanations of auto-biographical nature; those who mention it ( for example Benedettini 2005; Didier 1982 ) typically prefer to investigate long-term literary continuity and to emphasize the importance of medieval suggestions as literary deviceslxxi, rather than the specificity of eighteenth-century debates that I have analyzed in another study.

Sade's personal troubles are often clearly reflected in his writing: Valcour can easily be argued to be Sade's fictional alter-ego; The Parlement d'Aix sentences Sade to death (September 3, 1772) in the aftermath of the affaire des bonbons: an event during which supposed aphrodisiacs were served ended in charges of poisoning being pressed (Parrat in Colloque d'Aix 1968:51sslxxii ); de Blamont (1795-2: 754ss ) in Aline et Valcour praises the Aix Parlement for his efficiency and tells with relish the story of a young man arrested while he was paying a visit to his dying mother: a rendition of what happened to Sade himself (February 15, 1777 ); it is also important how de Blamont acknowledges that the victim was guilty of very minor crimes. Finally, 'Le prĂŠsident mystifiĂŠ' is nothing but a never ending, slanderous tirade against noblesse de robe and the justice systemlxxiii represented by de Fontanis, prĂŠsident du parlement d'Aix. It is not hard to spot Sade's mental projection in the story in which a marquis verbally and physically abuses de Fontanis; such

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III projection becomes even clearer if we consider le marquis d'Olincourt acts on behalf of le comte

d'Elbène (Sade held the titles of both count and marquis ): eighteenth-century French political debates are compressed in the story, for example when old de Fontanis – again victim of a 'prank'bathes in the dung of a pig sty:

Quoi qu'il en soit, comme la connaissance ne se fit pas tout de suite, et que la civilisation mère de la politesse n'est guère plus avancée parmi les membres du Parlement d'Aix, que parmi les animaux méprisés de l'israélité, il y eut d'abord une espèce de choc, dans lequel le président ne cueillit point de lauriers : il fut battu, froissé, harcelé de coups de grouins ; il fit des remontrances, on ne l'écouta point ; il promit d'enregistrer, rien ; il parla de décret, on ne s'émut pas davantage ; il menaça d'exil, on le foula aux pieds ; et le malheureux Fontanis tout en sang travaillait déjà à une sentence où il ne s'agissait rien moins que de fagot, quand on accourut enfin à son secours. ( Sade, 'Le président mystifié' in Historiettes, contes et fabliaux, 1788, n.p ). Sade's aristocratic and physiocratic nostalgia emphasizing disused lifestyles is very present: the opening of the 'Chastelaine de Longeville' (1788) could not be more explicit:” Au temps où les seigneurs vivaient despotiquement dans leurs terres, dans ces temps glorieux où la France comptait dans son enceinte une foule de souverains, au lieu de trente mille esclaves bas rampants devant un seul “[ in times when landlords despotically ruled their domains; these glorious times in which France was inhabited by a great number of sovereign landlords, instead of thirty thousands slaves bowing before one single monarch]; Benjamin (1936:2) seems to share the same nostalgia:

If peasants and seamen were past masters of storytelling, the artisan class was its university. In it was combined the lore of faraway places, such as 30

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III a much-traveled man brings home, with the lore of the past, as it best reveals itself to natives of a place. In the marquis' works traveling from the countryside to a big city, or from a known city to an unknown one is the occasion for the fall of various heroes or heroines. As a telling example,

sensible Florville's journey from Paris to Lorraine begins her misfortunes, for she is seduced and gives birth to an illegitimate child she cannot keep, while her journey(s) to escape only make(s) things worse: in the house of pious madame de Lérince she is raped but manages to accidentally kill the culprit, who in the end turns out to be her son; at the end of another journey ( in Nancy ) she appears as eye-witness in a process for murder and a woman is sentenced to death as a result: she'll find out later that woman to be the mother she had never met. At the end of all journeys, married to much older Monsieur de Courval and expecting a child from him, she receives the uncanny visit (thus she is the recipient of the 'message' of someone else's journey ) of her former lover, who is no other than M. de Courval's estranged son, so she learns -among other things- how Courval is the father she had never met and the father of her child is her brother. Similar examples abound: Valcour's stopover on his way to Languedoc begins a chain of unfortunate events that drive him to insolvency (his yearly rente falls from 50.000 livres to 2.000 écus ), which in turn is one of the causes of Aline's doom; Sainville's journey to Venice is the beginning of all troubles, for libertine Fallieri abducts Léonore; le comte de Dorci travels to Rouen in the gallant attempt to rescue an innocent peasant accused of murder, yet his journey's success brings about the death of the real culprit, Dorci's brother; le président de Fontanis goes on several short journeys, and each one ends

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III in humiliation, verbal and physical abuse; monsieur de Bernac travels to attend what he thinks is a wedding party, only to be on the receiving end of physical punishment.

Much like Wertz (1969) claims, literature is an immemorial societal tool to come to grips with -and hopefully soothe or resolve – social conflicts through “morality plays” that allow symbolic retribution, (partial) reversal of roles and so forth. Carlyle refers to the phenomenon as “France was long a 'Despotism tempered by Epigrams;' and now, it would seem, the Epigrams have get the upper hand. “ (Carlyle n.d:17 ); Kant oozes delight highly praising absolute enlightened monarch Frederick II because “Only one ruler in the world says: Argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey!” (Kant n.d:2 ); I cannot help mentioning Mussolini's concession to the masses, when in a public speech he granted “il diritto di mormorare” [the right to gripe]. Sade -in fact- wants to 'right wrongs' exchanging virtual blows with the figments of his imagination:

I come to this essay not as an expert in literature but as a psychologist who was initially interested in the use of writing as a way to affect people's health. Through a series of experiments, my colleagues and I discovered that when people put their emotional upheavals into words, their physical and mental health improved markedly. Further, the act of constructing stories appeared to be a natural human process that helped individuals understand their experiences and themselves. (Pennebacker 2000:3)

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III THE CATHARTIC VALUE OF AN UNCANNY DETECTIVE STORY

The first part of this study begun with the statement that narrative is never innocent, for it overtly betrays the author's fear, bias, allegiance and so forth in a number of ways. Next, a statement was made wondering why Sade recurs to stories to foster his political and philosophical message, and why do such stories often masquerade as either folk tales, or eye witness accounts (for example, travel diaries or anthropological accounts ). A summary analysis of relevant literature reveals that â&#x20AC;&#x153; In other words the familiar framework and format of the fairy tale were used to circumvent distrust and to facilitate identification. (Fitzgerald 2006:13) â&#x20AC;&#x153;, which applies even more to fiction masquerading as a forensic account. Furthermore, awareness of Sade's propensities for 'literary indebtedness' casts shadows over the entire endeavor. As a matter of fact, contemporary examples of cult/opinion-leading publications shows how faulty the whole concept is of applying (pseudo)anthropology and/or folklore to making a statement essentially political in nature; and how untrustworthy the resulting account is: twentieth-century's Alex Haley's and Margaret Mead's accounts are no more reliable than Sade's fiction, for all represent the prostitution of topoi of immemorial utopian genesis to (petty) political priorities. Immemorial motific suggestions (for example the deliverance of the virgin, the initiatory journey, radical cultural pluralism etc ) are thus perverted in Sade to the advantage of a composite mixture of eighteenth-century commonplace topoi (for example the debate between physiocratie and mercantilisme,

philosophie ), self-serving pleas ( for example tirades against arranged marriages and punitive 33

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III justice ) and aristocratic counter-culture (for example the virulent denunciation of noblesse de

robe ) that constitutes his message. In perverting immemorial motific suggestions in the realm of the physical, the mystical and the allegorical, Sade is in the good company of 'first class' intellectuals (Marx, Fourier etc ) and momentous events (for example the French Revolution ): all tried to cross the border to the land of utopia and back; it was also mentioned how Sade paid allegiance to the strictest realism.

The two main underlying concepts/narrative devices that Sade constantly employs are those of anagnorisis and catharsis, whose approximative translation might be “recognition” (anagnorisis) and “purgation” (catharsis): since Aristotle systematized them, those concepts have been at the core of Greek, Roman and Western literature in general. As a matter of fact, these terms may mean -and have actually meant- different things to different people in different epochs: “The enthusiasts can be divided into two groups; those who take the theory [catharsis] to refer to bowel purgation, and those who (often implicitly) have in mind the activity in which we find Leopold Bloom engaged in Ulysses. “ ( Hill 1958:114) PECULIARLY ENOUGH, the Oxford English Dictionary as late as the 1933 edition lists under the entry for catharsis no literary meanings but only medical meanings for the term and, one is tempted to add, perhaps that is the way it should be. Few critical terms have been so universally abused—so distorted, so deracinated, so casually misappliedlxxiv(Bennett 1981:204-205) As Professor Else points out in his analysis, catharsis as one of the "big" ideas in literary criticism has been interpreted in two major ways. The term has been taken to mean either the "purgation" of the emotions of pity and fear 34

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III from the consciousness of the audience that witnesses the tragedy or as the "purification" in a moral or ethical sense of these emotions. lxxv (Golden 1962:51-52)

Hardison (1969) mentions “moral, religious and literary theories of catharsis “ (1969:3) lxxvi; the first one(s) refer to situations in which a culprit “ seeing the crime enacted on the stage can make the pangs of conscience so intense that the need for relief via confession becomes stronger than the fear of exposure “ (1969:5). 'Messiah' Zamè ( Sade 1795-1:736ss ) incorporates cathartic theater plays into his 'divine' andragogy; Sainville and Zamè witness the effects of catharsis on an adulteress who just can't stand watching a play involving adultery, and runs away distressed; another sort of theater play is used to get Zamè's son Orai sexually interested ( for the sake of progeny ) in his superbly attractive wife Zilia lxxvii. Hardison (1969:8ss ) later mentions poetic justice, that is “characters should be rewarded and punished according to their virtues and vices”. This literary device unfolds in Tamoè, where the adulteress confesses her crime and her lover sails into exile; it finds a partial confirmation in 'La chastelaine de Longeville' - for monseigneur admits “ Ô

juste ciel, s'écrie le baron, une main inconnue agit dans tout ceci, mais c'est la providence qui la dirige, je ne murmurerai pas de ses coups .lxxviii “ (Sade 1788, n.p )-; it recurs in 'L'époux corrigé' and 'Le président mystifié' insofar 'old geezers' de Bernac and de Fontanis 'learn their lesson', but is thoroughly perverted in 'Florville et Courval' and 'Dorci': Florville's sensibilité -which according to Garagnon 1983 is Sade's literary equivalent of noblesse - and Dorci's gallantry literally destroy their lives. 35

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III “Tragic catharsis, then, is the result of learning something about the events forming the tragic plot” (Hardison 1969:15) and “I will say at once that both courses lead to the same result: the “uncanny” is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar “ (Freud 1919:1-2). This 'learning something about what is tragic' -broadly putencompasses all things human, because -according to the marquis' cosmology and cosmogony – people are -to borrow an instance of pathetic fallacy from Aline- in a situation such as when “ une voix tumultueuse et intérieure semble me dire que je fais comme les matelots qui se réjouissent pendant que l'ouragan se forme au dessus de leur testes “ [a sudden voice from within seems to tell me that I am like like those sailors who have a nice time while a hurricane is brewing over their heads] (Sade 1795-1:323).

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III ANAGNORISIS

Recognition (anagnorisis) and the uncanny are thus often linked in Sade's narrative. When everything seems just fine, Dorci receives an anonymous message forewarning him that he ought to better stop his investigation to avert a disaster; he tries to comply, yet it's too late:

Tout alla donc le mieux du monde, lorsque le comte reçut un billet anonyme, contenant le peu de mots qu'on va lire: «Abandonnez sur-le-champ l'affaire que vous suivez, renoncez à toute perquisition du meurtrier de l'homme de la forêt ; vous creusez vous-même l'abîme où vous allez vous engloutir... Combien vos vertus vont vous coûter cher ! Cruel homme, que je vous plains... mais il n'est peut-être plus temps. Adieu. » Le comte éprouva un frémissement si terrible à la lecture de ce billet, qu'il pensa s'en évanouir; en réunissant ce que contenait ce fatal écrit au pressentiment qu'il avait éprouvé, il vit bien que quelque chose de sinistre le menaçait infailliblement. Il resta dans la ville, mais il ne se mêla plus de rien... Juste ciel! on avait eu raison de le lui dire... il n'était plus temps, il en avait trop fait, ses cruelles démarches n'avaient que trop réussi. A huit heures du matin, le quinzième jour de son arrivée à Rouen, un conseiller au Parlement de sa connaissance demande à lui parler, et l'abordant avec précipitation: - Partez, mon cher comte, partez à la minute même! lui dit ce magistrat tout ému, vous êtes le plus infortuné de tous les êtres ; puisse votre malheureuse aventure s'anéantir de la mémoire des hommes ! en les convainquant des dangers de la vertu, elle leur en ferait abandonner le culte. Ah ! s'il était possible de croire la providence injuste, ce serait bien sûrement aujourd'hui! - Vous m'effrayez, monsieur ! expliquez-vous, de grâce, que m'arrive-t-il? - Votre protégé est innocent, les portes vont lui être ouvertes, vos recherches ont fait trouver le coupable... Au moment où je vous parle il est déjà dans nos prisons : ne m'en demandez pas davantage. - Parlez, monsieur, parlez ! enfoncez le poignard dans mon cœur... Eh bien, ce coupable ? - C'est votre frère.lxxix

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III

A similar uncanny experience occurs to Florville when she meets the young man who would soon rape her:

Soit pressentiment... soit tout ce qu'il vous plaira, monsieur, il me prit, en apercevant ce jeune homme, un frémissement universel dont il me fut impossible de démêler la cause... je fus prête à m'évanouir... Ne recherchant point le motif de cet effet bizarre, je l'attribuai à quelque malaise intérieur, et Saint-Ange cessa de me frapper. Mais si ce jeune homme m'avait, dès la première vue, agitée de cette sorte, pareil effet s'était manifesté dans lui... je l'appris enfin par sa bouche. Dom Juan (anti-hero of the histoire 'Les délires de l'amour, nouvelle Espagnole' in Aline et Valcour ) is informed that a letter from his adulterous mother in exile just arrived lxxx, which lifts the prohibition to marry Léontine; it's an highly uncanny moment, because Dom Juan has recently murdered Léontine and raped her lifeless body. Much like in Freud's definition above, those people are 'getting back what was once very familiar': Dom Juan discovers his biological father and thus confirms his doubts about his own birth he had always harbored; Florville, Léonore, Sophie and Fontanis undergo a similar experience.

Of course the limited scope of this study compels me to more brevity than some readers might find appropriate, but I hope a point is well taken: recognition is most times uncanny. Of course many concepts such as “the uncanny” acquired a well-defined, mainstream scholarly and literary 'personality' in the twentieth century, while Sade is a novelist from the eighteenth century;

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III my interest here, however, is not to lend support to anachronism or to individual theories but to make a point using whichever images or concepts I see best fit, so readers are advised to make the necessary allowance.

Aline et Valcour is a literal goldmine of assumedlxxxi, unknownlxxxii, multiplelxxxiii, stolenlxxxiv or recoveredlxxxv identities; Sainville and LĂŠonore either meet or cross paths without recognizing each other several times (for example in Malta, in Africa, in Spain ). While Florville, dom Juan, Bernac and Fontanis take part in a process unbeknown to them, as victims of a conspiracy (Fontanis, Bernac ) or of the 'invisible hand' of fate (Florville, dom Juan), Sainville, Dorci and people in the

histoire de Sophie (in Aline et Valcour ) do take part in real detective work on purpose, besides being at the mercy of fate: to ascertain who Sophie really is, to locate and rescue LĂŠonore, to identify the mysterious murderer. I drew some considerations from Lacan's famous seminary (1972) on Poe's 'The purloined letter' (1844); As Brooks suggests (1994), psychoanalysis can be effectively compared to detective stories and more:

Mens sana in fabula sana: mental health is a coherent life story, neurosis is a faulty narrative. -...- the narrative chain, with each event connected to the next by reasoned causal links, marks the victory of reason over chaos, of society over the aberrancy of crime, and restitutes a world in which aetiological histories offer the best solution to the apparently unexplainable -...-. The logic of the detective narrative in its classic guise results in the creation of a new and putatively ultimate narrative which stages fully the dynamics of the transference. -...- At issue, for both Freud and Sherlock Holmes in the revised models of their methods, is not so much the history of the past, or at least not the history of the past directly, as its present narrative discourse. This is the space of dialogue, struggle, construction. In the 39

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III discipline and mastery of the transference lies the significant work of interpretation and understanding.lxxxvi (Brooks 1994:47-64) Anagnorisis (recognition) comes with a price and must be earnt; the 'solution' (for example rescuing LĂŠonore or identifying the murderer ) is repeatedly 'purloined' like Poe's fictional letterlxxxvii; in the end -much like the high-ranking thief in Poe's story- characters (dom Juan, Florville, Dorci, Sophie ) learn how they had been mistaken all along: the 'invisible hand' of fate (nature, providence...) acts like an unmerciful psychologist or -if we prefer- an unmerciful Socrates who uses maieutic to elicit the truth from a disciple; truth that was once familiar to him but is now forgotten; much like biological birth, 'giving birth' to the truth can be fatal or have serious consequences. All in all, the 'truth' - that is any 'message' the writer intends to convey under the appearance of folklore or forensic accounts- shall come as a gradual realization by inoculation of smaller amounts of truth collected in a sort of detective work; had Dorci been forewarned out of thin air that his brother was the murderer, he would probably have discarded the hint as nonsense, and so forth; recognition -as in Poe's 'purloined letter'- is never all-encompassing but makes room for dark, 'open' or otherwise unexplored aspects. At some point, thought, the 'truth' will suddenly strike like a thunderbolt, affecting the victim in a way similar to Pater's â&#x20AC;&#x153;sublimeâ&#x20AC;? lxxxviii. The story plays with both readers and fictional characters: at times readers know more than the fictional hero ( for example readers know Bernac and Fontanis are victims of a conspiracy ); at times they are left wondering with Florville or Dorci. When fictional heroes meet their fate, the back cover of the book or the silence of the storyteller leave them finally alone, at which point the reader begins to

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III reminisce and afterthoughts appear; it's the moment to raise against unjust prejudices, punitive justice and to jeer moral codes that serve as fig leaf for the clutch of blood-thirsty yet pathetic elites: only in the second half of the twentieth-century will that happen, for example unfolding throughout the Devlin-Hart-Dworkin debate over moral legislation and homosexuality, or throughout the 'enlightened' international appeals to clemency towards people like say Anatoly Onoprienko, Ukrainian serial killer who had murdered 52 people, sentenced to death in 1999; le

roi de Sennar or de Blamontlxxxix could not have asked for more. What had for a long time been considered the sophism of an insane inmate is now the accepted 'moral' norm to deal with deviance and crime, much in the way the marquis never stopped telling the reader about again and again and again.

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III CONCLUSION

This study begun with the simple statement that Sade wants the reader's attention and wants it badly. Although brevity is needed the most to handle such complex subjects within the limited scope of this study (thus shortcomings may be expected), we can say that Sade's compulsion to get his point across to the reader is best epitomized by his choice of motific suggestions, genres and so forth. Unfortunately, narrative is never innocent, and betrays the author's private subjectivity in a number of ways; the marquis is therefore guided towards a number of literary devices among others that go beyond the literary proper of his times; today's examples have been used to make clear by proxy how scandalous and 'intolerable' Sade's message might have been to people of his times. A sample of Sade's non-obscene production has been examined to understand why narrative takes the shape or masquerades as folk tales or eye-witness accounts. The reason -again- is that Sade wants to 'convince' the reader to endorse new values or -at least- to sympathize with the marquis' own perceived situation and the 'revolutionary' definition of general categories such as good and bad that follows from such organized premises; in spite of formal denial, we can safely conclude, from the incessant repetition of certain topoi ( for example related to situational ethics, radical cultural pluralism or criticizing punitive justice ) and from the trouble Sade incurred to publish his works, that the marquis really wanted to communicate. The emotion with which he catechts his narrative brings up the issue of Sade's pedanticism, mythomania and thus of 'literary indebtedness': he has borrowed -at times nearly verbatim- topics or thought patterns from a 42

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III number of authors: Kant, Victor de Mirabeau, Voltaire, Raynal, Bougainville etc. Various disciplines have been summoned: biology, burgeoning anthropology and political economy, travel diaries, philosophie and so forth to lend credibility to a composite mixture of self-serving pleas of an autobiographic nature and eighteenth-century aristocratic counter-culture that constitute the 'original' part of Sade's message dispersed in a medium of eighteenth-century 'literary proper':

romanesque, roman sensible and so forth. The compulsion to find the right 'authority' drove Sade towards stories, often masquerading as folk tales or eye-witness accounts, for the simple reason that such narratives work: they always have, and always will. As a matter of fact, those narratives help circumvent doubt and distrust, thus facilitating identification; some authors even claim storylistening induces a trance-like state in the listener, which may explain why folk tales have been enlisted in the twentieth-century to serve both Nazism and Communism. There is no consensus among critics about both the purpose, origin and efficacy of Sade's narratives of choice: from mere Trojan horses to immemorial legacies to pass on relevant cultural norms; from accurate accounts to mere hoaxes. Walter Benjamin, for example, opposes vehemently storytelling to modernity that novels epitomize; yet novelist Sade openly endorses bards and traditional storytelling as literary antecedents.

A series of immemorial motific suggestions recur in Sade (for example the initiatory journey, the deliverance of the virgin etc ) that are invariably perverted to his 'political aim' and to 43

570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III his 'ethically situational' world view that places powerless mankind at the mercy of all-powerful and merciless forces in turn called fate, nature or providence. The marquis' fictional characters -and the readers by proxy- shall undergo trials and tribulations so that the final catharsis be achieved through gradual and continuous anagnorisis in what looks like a detective story; the final revelation(s) will change the fictional character and the world s-he inhabits forever and -Sade hopes- the reader as well, so that s-he may not only understand the marquis' vitriolic denunciations, but share his viewpoint as well.

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570037554 SERGIO ZENERE LLM3002D Dissertation level III DECLARATION

I certify that this dissertation is my own unaided work, that any work or material included in it which is not my own has been identified and that it conforms to the word limits. The word count of the body of the dissertation is 8656 excluding indented citations.

This term is often employed in literature to part Sade's less obscene works and literature related to Sade in general, from Sade's most obscene, thus sadist, works. ii 'Florville et Courval' ou le fatalisme; 'La chastelaine de Longeville' ou la femme vengée; 'Dorci', ou la bizarrerie du sort. iii “Si les romans dits philosophiques ont traditionnellement le lourd défaut d'être tributaires de la philosophie dont ils sont sensés être l'illustration, Sade fait preuve dans Aline et Valcour d'une imagination débordante, cumulant et multipliant les péripéties, surexploitant et poussant à leurs limites les ressources du genre – enlèvements, substitutions d'enfant, meurtres, fuites, reconnaissances, naufrages, rencontres d'anthropophages... “ (Lanni 2004, no page ) iv “De même, la présence, dans le roman sensible, de héros libertins justifie le recours à des motifs et des situations narratifs propres aux écrits clandestins. “ (Abramovici in Sade et le grand guignol : 36 ); “A la simple lecture du roman, trois constatations préliminaires s'imposent, qui sont des données de fait dans l'architecture du livre. D'abord la présence envahissante de la sensibilité: non seulement dans ses manifestations immédiates (scènes d'attendrissement et de larmes, soupirs, émotion procurée par les actes de bienfaisance, expression lyrique des sentiments etc .), mais aussi au niveau explicite, où elle est perçue comme telle par les personnages et leur sert à se définir eux-mêmes et à se définir entre eux: “ (Garagnon 1983:175 ). v “If the conversation turns upon some general conception which has no particular name, but requires some figurative or metaphorical designation, you must begin by choosing a metaphor that is favourable to your proposition. For instance, the names used to denote the two political parties in Spain, Serviles and Liberales, are obviously chosen by the latter. The name Protestants is chosen by themselves, and also the name Evangelicals; but the Catholics call them heretics. Similarly, in regard to the names of things which admit of a more exact and definite meaning: for example, if your opponent proposes an alteration, you can call it an innovation, as this is an invidious word. If you yourself make the proposal, it will be the converse. In the first case, you can call the antagonistic principle “the existing order,” in the second, “antiquated prejudice”. What an impartial man with no further purpose to serve would call “public worship” or a “system of religion,” is described by an adherent as “piety,” “godliness”; and by an opponent as “bigotry,” “superstition”. This is, at bottom, a subtle petitio principii. What is sought to be proved is, first of all, inserted in the definition, whence it is then taken by mere analysis. What one man calls “placing in safe custody,” another calls “throwing into prison”. A speaker often betrays his purpose beforehand by the names which he gives to things. One may talks of “the clergy”; another, of “the priests”. Of all the tricks of controversy, this is the most frequent, and it is used instinctively. You hear of “religious zeal,” or “fanaticism", a “faux pas,” a “piece of gallantry,” or “adultery”; an “equivocal,” or a “bawdy” story; “embarrassment,” or “bankruptcy”; “through influence and connection,” or by “bribery and nepotism”; “sincere gratitude,” or “good pay”. “ vi Fussell does not deny the horror and massacres of WWI; he simply documents the role of propaganda office(r)s and the results of their activity. vii It must be emphasized how a series of publications after WWI were devoted to deeply revising war time allegations. viii“a lifelong.suspicion of the press was one lasting result of the ordinary man's experience of the war. -...- no one can calculate the number of jews who died in the second war because of the ridicule during the twenties and thirties of allied propaganda about belgian nuns violated and children sadistically used. In a climate of widespread skepticism about any further atrocity stories, most people refused fully to credit reports of the concentration camps until ocular evidence compelled belief and it was too late.” (Fussell 1975:316). ix White (1992) claims we are “eminently justified” (1992:40) in preserving just one narrative of WWII massacres. x I merely paraphrase Stueber's text here, because I'm unconcerned with taking sides. xi From several dozens to hundreds deaths are credited to him, while inspection of his abode revealed dozens of human skulls. xii “Disinformation is typically fabricated by specialists -...- [then] the Communist Party -...- plants the fabrication wherever it can- mainly in pro-Soviet foreign newspapers, some of which have been set up with KGB subsidies -...around the world“ (Miller: 75). xiii“ Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment, says Seneca; and it is therefore an easy matter if you have an authority on your side which your opponent respects. The more limited his capacity and knowledge, the greater is the number of the authorities who weigh with him. But if his capacity and knowledge are of a high order, there are very few;“ (Schopenhauer 2004: 16 ) i

xiv “ Initially after 1917, fairy tales were banned. However, it became clear after a short time that it was impossible to stamp out fantasy in children and the Russian fairy tales were adapted to further the aims of the Socialist state in subtle ways: the fairy tale, with its positive hero, became a disguised political tale in which the child’s emotional life was linked with political ideas of heroes. Adaptations were not confined to Russia: the tales of Eastern European countries were also adapted so that, for example, Grimms' Tales in East Germany became very different from Grimm’ Tales in West Germany. In other words the familiar framework and format of the fairy tale were used to circumvent distrust and to facilitate identification.“ (Fitzgerald 2006:13). After all it is not so uncommon: heroes on a quest, victims or ogres can be easily purported to wear a hat (or a shirt) of the right color and being heralds of the 'right' party or victims of the 'wrong' party. xv “ N'en doutons point, ce fut dans les contrées qui, les premières reconnurent des Dieux; que les romans prirent leur source, et par conséquent en Egypte, berceau certain de tous les cultes; à peine les hommes eurent-ils soupçonné des êtres immortels, qu'ils les firent agir et parier; dès lors, voilà des métamorphoses, des fables, des paraboles, des romans; en un mot voilà des ouvrages de fictions, dès que la fiction s'empare de l'esprit des hommes. Voilà des livres fabuleux, dès qu'il est question de chimères; quand les peuples, d'abord guidés par des prêtres, après s'être égorgés pour leurs fantastiques divinités, s'arment enfin pour leur rois ou pour leur patrie, l'hommage offert à l'héroïsme, balance celui de la superstition; non-seulement on met, très-sagement alors, les héros à la place des Dieux, mais on chante les enfants de Mars comme on avait célébré ceux du ciel; on ajoute aux grandes actions de. leur vie, ou, las de s'entretenir d'eux, on crée des personnages qui leur ressemblent... qui les surpassent, et bientôt de nouveaux romans paraissent, plus vraisemblables sans doute, et bien plus faits pour l'homme que ceux qui n'ont célébré que des fantômes. Herculea, grand capitaine, dut vaillamment combattre ses ennemis, voilà le héros et l'histoire; Hercule détruisant des monstres, pourfendant des géants, voilà le Dieu... la fable et l'origine de la superstition; mais de la superstition raisonnable, puisque celle-ci n'a pour base que la récompense de l'héroïsme, la reconnaissance due aux libérateurs d'une nation, au lieu que celle qui forge des êtres incréés, et jamais aperçus, n'a que la crainte, l'espérance, et le dérèglement d'esprit pour motifs. Chaque peuple eu donc ses Dieux, ses demi-dieux, ses héros, ses véritables histoires et ses fables; quelque chose comme on vient de le voir, put être vrai dans ce qui concernait les héros; tout fut controuvé, tout fut fabuleux dans le reste, tout fut, ouvrage d'invention, tout fut roman, parce que les Dieux ne parlèrent que par l'organe des hommes, qui plus ou moins intéressés à ce ridicule artifice, ne manquèrent pas de composer le“ (Sade 1800, n.p ). This heavily conflicts with Benjamin's opinion. xvi “In switching sources for his tale, Sainville has also changed voices, having gone from an imitation of the distant, uncharacterized observer of Le Voyageur Francois to a careful log-keeper like Bougainville. Nautical details suddenly abound.” (Dolan 1986:310). Sade is known to have mailed 'field questionnaires' to gather details for his romanesque tales set in Spain and Portugal in Aline et Valcour (1795). xvii Sade borrows arguments -at times nearly verbatim- from Kant's geopolitical utopia Perpetual peace (1795) to script the tirades of his bohémien Brigandos, 'Lycurgus' of a band of petty criminals, philosophe, and surrogate Robin Hood. xviii Sade borrows heavily from the arguments of physiocratie (emphasizing the role of agriculture ) to debunk mercantilisme (seen as source of ill fate and wars ). The physiocratie/mercantilisme divide again represents the political divide between the Crown (allied with wealthy burghers and considered the patron of noblesse de robe) and the constitutional theories of (old) nobility: absolutism and dirigisme versus a collegial interpretation of power and/or fondness for regional (semi)independence. Physiocratie, agriculture and regional (semi)independence were the staple of Victor de Mirabeau's thought, from which Sade heavily borrows. xix “ Experience which is passed on from mouth to mouth is the source from which all storytellers have drawn. And among those who have written down the tales, it is the great ones whose written version differs least from the speech of the many nameless storytellers. Incidentally, among the last named there are two groups which, to be sure, overlap in many ways. And the figure of the storyteller gets its full corporeality only for the one who can picture them both.“ (Benjamin 1936:1). xx “ Pedanticism is an oft-overlooked quality of much of Sade's writing, where the display of knowledge is frequently a form of aggression implying the inferiority of the listener -...- One cannot help remembering the impatience with Sade's annoying allusions to antiquity that was expressed in the arrest form: his denouncers were actually rather astute readers of his text, where pedanticism, power, and aggression are inextricably linked.“ (Hayes 1989:30) xxi Plagiarism plays a major role in Sade, in spite of his vehement critique thereof (“ Je ne connais pas de métier plus

bas, je ne conçois pas d'aveux plus humiliant que ceux où de tels hommes sont contraints, en avouant eux-mêmes, qu'il faut bien qu'ils n'aient pas d'esprit, puisqu'ils sont obligés d'emprunter celui des autres.“ in Sade 1800, no page ); “Jean Deprun relève les emprunts de Sade à la philosophie biologique de son temps, notoirement à l'animalculisme de Leeuwenhoeck et Hartsoeker, au médecin Guillaume Lamy, à La Mettrie, Benoît de Maillet, Buffon, Robinet, Diderot ; à Fréret, enfin, que le futur pensionnaire de Charenton récrit en même temps Voltaire et d'Holbach “ (Terasse 1989, no page ). The question of Sade's plagiarism will not concern me here, though. xxii Father of the revolutionary leader. L'ami des hommes around 1755 published a treatise ( Traité de la population ) in which he advocated the primacy of agriculture and criticized luxury, financiers, cupidity and so forth. He is ranked among the founders of physiocratie, mostly in antagonism to mercantilisme. In very general terms physiocratie criticized State intervention and exalted the importance of land and agriculture. Mirabeau was also an agronomist, partisan of provincial autonomy and aristocratic independence; most of Mirabeau's arguments return in Sade's works. xxiii Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens & du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes , 1770. xxiv To give only one example, Lély (1967:147ss ) discusses Sade's claim concerning a letter of protest he would have personally slipped in Louis XVI's vehicle in the hectic moments of his re-entry from Varennes: “Exhibitionnisme civique, ou effet de la contagion d'une névrose collective?” [ exhibitionism or collective neurosis? ] asks Lély (1967:147). The letter exists, yet did Sade deliver a copy within the King's reach? Lély suggests ( 1967: 149ss ) that was an 'ethically situational' attempt to appeal to maximalist tendencies during Terreur to secure the favor of extremists in power at that point in time. xxv Aline et Valcour (1795) contains endless prophecies: the 'messiah' and lawgiver of a paradise island not only foretells ( 1795-1:609ss ) the fortune of France, but of the Spanish colonies as well and utters shocking statements about the United States, foretelling that -akin to the “Republic of Romulus”- one day they will “make the world tremble”, thus anticipating many theorists and scholars of international relations. A country clergyman predicts “the demise of this modern Babylon of yours” (Sade 1795-1:141 ), and so forth. xxvi“ Initially after 1917, fairy tales were banned. However, it became clear after a short time that it was impossible to stamp out fantasy in children and the Russian fairy tales were adapted to further the aims of the Socialist state in subtle ways: the fairy tale, with its positive hero, became a disguised political tale in which the child’s emotional life was linked with political ideas of heroes. Adaptations were not confined to Russia: the tales of Eastern European countries were also adapted so that, for example, Grimms' Tales in East Germany became very different from Grimm’ Tales in West Germany. In other words the familiar framework and format of the fairy tale were used to circumvent distrust and to facilitate identification.“ (Fitzgerald 2006:13). xxvii This term is used at times in literature to part 'dystopian' narratives whose outcome is bleak, gruesome or negative from 'eutopian' narratives that -while belonging to the realm of utopia as well- offer positive and comforting outcomes. The term atopia may also be found, meaning “absence of physical emplacement, borders or similar”. xxviii “Ainsi, malgré les assurances de l'éditeur sur l'exactitude des faits rapportés, l'Afrique de Sade est une Afrique imaginaire.” (Gallouet 2005:70 ) xxix “S'il a préféré inscrire un épisode de son roman chez les Jagas plutôt que chez les Hottentots, sans doute est-ce pour surenchérir librement dans la monstruosité. En cette fin de siècle, les moeurs des Hottentots, décrites avec force détails par les voyageurs, les historiens, les savants, ne suscitent plus les haut-le-coeur d'antan. “ (Lanni 2004, no page ). xxx “Sade's opus in metonymic fashion.” ( Esprit Créateur 1975:404 ) xxxi “no one was likely to return from "Davis's Land" anytime in the near future to contradict Sade. “ (Dolan 1986:309). xxxii “l'épisode de Butua - soixante pages - ne sont pas seulement commandées par des fantasmes. -...- la Cafrerie et le pays de Hottentots ) qu'il sait peuplés d'anthropophages et sur lequel Sade pense bien qu'on n'a aucune relation de voyage à opposer à ce qu'il imaginera. “ (Perol 2002:233 ). xxxiii The term refers to entertainment and cultural productions in the United States especially made to appeal to the African community. As a mere example Luke Cage, hero for hire, a comic strip published by Marvel (1972). Luke Cage in fact offers to put his super-powers to the service of those who hire him. In the comics Cage is an African

sub-urban petty criminal who is taken into custody repeatedly, before an experiment gone wrong turns him into a sort of superman; the various detective Shaft or inspector Tibbs movies are another example, alongside sit-coms like the Jeffersons, Sanford&son etc. xxxiv African-American writer Haley had to settle a dispute in court, recognizing he had plagiarized significant passages from a work by Harold Courlander. It may be interesting to add that Carlander was a white anthropolgist. xxxv “ Her subsequent book. Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), claimed to give an unadorned account of uninhibited Samoan femininity, a snapshot of a society in which girls engage in blissful ("free and easy") sexual experimentation at a young age. Mead also set up a sharp contrast with North American girls. On the one hand, the young Polynesian female was an adept and an amateur of erotic encounters; on the other hand, her North American counterpart was a buttoned-up Puritan. It was not so surprising that Coming of Age in Samoa became something of an alternative Bible among sixties sexual radicals. -...- Mead's scenario of love in the South Seas, "under the palm trees" in her own phrase, started to unravel in the 1980s, when an Australian, Derek Freeman, denounced her narrative as a myth {Margaret Mead and Samoa, 1983). In his account, Samoan culture was in fact rigid, maledominated, hierarchical, fundamentalist, fixated on premarital virginity. He even brought forward, as evidence, one of Mead's own sources who confessed—sixty-odd years after the event—that she and her friends had freely misled Mead by telling her what she wanted to hear, stories of innumerable moonlit rendezvous and sultry perfumed liaisons. In truth they remained strict conformists to the Samoan moral code. Mead herself later admitted she had been hoaxed.“ (Martin 2006:144ss) xxxvi “ assuming human nature to be a simple thing, the Enlightenment also, as a rule, assumed political and social problems to be simple, and therefore easy of solution. -...- rid man's mind of a few ancient errors -...- and theological dogmas, restore -...- the simplicity of the state of nature. -...- when, on the other hand, you pass on to the romantic period, you find the simple becoming an object of suspicion and even detestation (Lovejoy 1936:9-10). xxxvii diverse tendencies which, by one or another critic or historian, have been termed 'romantic': the immense multiplication of genres -...-; the quest for local color -...-; the revulsion against simplicity; the distrust of universal formulas in politics; the easthetic antipathy to standardization; the identification of the absolute with the 'concrete universal' in metaphysics; the feeling of “the glory of the imperfect”; the cultivation of individual, national and racial peculiarities; the depreciation of the obvious (Lovejoy 1936:293) “ xxxviiiSade recurs endlessly to pseudo-historical and pseudo-anthropological accounts to lend credit to his countercultural statements. A typical example occurs in Aline et Valcour (1795-1:1370ss): Bersac, another of Sade's philosophes and small-time impresario, is involved with other characters in a tragicomic and involuntary 'exchange of partners': his wife has a sexual encounter with another man. The incident annoys Bersac only a little, and a philosophical exchange ensues to dissect the topic and to show what boon sexual profligacy is to women. “Parcourons rapidement les usages des peuples qui ont mieux valu que nous. Les Brésiliens, les Scythes, les Lapons prostituaient aux étrangers des filles, dont ils ne faisaient pas moins leur femmes après. Au Pégu -...-. Chez les Tartares, au delà du Thibet, tout ceux qui connaissent une fille lui donnent un présent dont elle doit toujours se parer; et la certitude d'avoir un mari n'est pour elle, qu'en raison de la quantité qu'elle peut offrir de ces preuves de son libertinage. Hérodote nous assure que les Lidiennes n'avaient d'autre dot, que le fruit de leur prostitution -...-, les filles de l'isle-de-Chipre -...-; on insulte une Circassienne quand on lui dit qu'elle n'a point d'amans. Le culte d'Astarte au temple de Biblus -...-; personne ne s'allie à une Armenienne, si le prestres de Tanais n'en avaient abusé de toute sorte de manière. -...- Hérodote et Strabon nous disent que les Babiloniennes -...-; tout les peuples sages pensèrent, en un mot, madame, que jamais l'incontinence d'une jeune fille ne devait lui porter obstacle”. Of course Sade indiscriminately suggests any example that both supports his counter-culture and is lent sort of historical or philosophical credibility, while avoiding examples to the contrary. xxxix Marxists considered Owen an utopian socialist, but Owen's own opinion of his system certainly differed. xl Basically that non-violent andragogy consists in 'naming and shaming' practices. xli Popular culture shows how the Lord of the rings suite of books has been known to inspire both far-left and farright political groups. xlii “the sanctity of the object still gives it some small spiritual value. As soon as the craze for symbolism spreads to profane or simply moral matters, decadence is manifest. Froissart -...- compares all the details of love to the various parts of a timepiece. Chastellain and Molinet vie with each other in political symbolism. The three estates represent the qualities of the virgin. The seven electors of the empire signify the virtues -...-. in reality this is symbolism

turned upside down; it uses things of the higher order as symbols of things of the lower order -p.201- “ (Huizinga 1972:201) xliii Another important occurrence is the era fascista, that is 'political' time-keeping during the Fascist regime, for example 1942, anno XX dell'era fascista was the 'accredited' version back then. In post WWII decades many 'accredited' intellectuals have tried to do the same with a new divide in time: pre- and post the German WWII camps. xliv The representation of the time of the day using units, which are decimally related. Namely one day divides into 10 decimal hours, each divided into 100 decimal minutes, in turn divided into 100 decimal seconds. xlv Some scholars remark the irony of the décade, offering one day of rest every ten, as opposed to the conventional Sunday. xlvi Léon Degrelle, Belgian fascist leader and later Waffen SS general narrates the tragi(comic) mistakes of German armies confronted with a multitude of villages named -for example- Stalino. xlvii Marxist Jewish-German philosopher. xlviii Jewish-German scholar and father of psychoanalysis. xlix “ The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real. In spite of all the emotion with which he cathects his world of play, the child distinguishes it quite well from reality; and he likes to link his imagined objects and situations to the tangible and visible things of the real world. This linking is all that differentiates the child's 'play' from 'phantasying'. The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantasy which he takes very seriously that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotionwhile separating it sharply from reality. Language has preserved this relationship between children's play and poetic creation.“ (Freud in Spector Person 1995:4 ). l Jewish-German philosopher and father of 'scientific socialism'. li “ And finally the division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society; that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him.. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplishedin any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.“ ( Marx in Rosen 1999:345 ). lii It is useful to recall that Marx used the term in a disparaging way, and that such distinction has been passed on and used without much afterthought. Needless to say, Fourier and others obviously did not think they were exercising in futility or chasing dreams. liii Is not Star Wars about knights delivering or protecting a princess during a perilious journey? liv “Je suis veuf, et jeune encore, me dit cet homme vertueux ; habiter sous le même toit serait faire naître des doutes que nous ne méritons point ; votre bonheur et votre réputation me sont chers, je ne veux compromettre ni l'un ni l'autre. Il faut nous séparer, Florville ; mais je ne vous abandonnerai de ma vie, je ne veux pas même que vous sortiez de ma famille ; j'ai une sœur veuve à Nancy, je vais vous y adresser, je vous réponds de son amitié comme de la mienne, et là, pour ainsi dire, toujours sous mes yeux, je pourrai continuer de veiller encore à tout ce qu'exigera votre éducation et votre établissement. “ ('Florville et Courval', in Sade (1800), n.p ) lv Sainville sails back to Europe from Tamoè with no less than seven millions livres in gold ingot. lvi German philosopher lvii“ The usefulness may,in one case, consist in a moral; in another, in some practical advice; in a third, in a proverb or maxim.In every case the storyteller is a man who has counsel for his readers. But if today “having counsel” is beginning to have an old-fashioned ring, this is because the communicability of experience is decreasing. In consequence we have no counsel either for ourselves or for others. After all, counsel is less an answer to a question than a proposal concerning the continuation of a story which is just unfolding. -...- Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom. The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.“

(Benjamin 1936:2-3) lviii“ It took the novel, whose beginnings go back to antiquity, hundreds of years before it encountered in the evolving middle class those elements which were favorable to its flowering. With the appearance of these elements, storytelling began quite slowly to recede into the archaic; in many ways, it is true, it took hold of the new material, but it was not really determined by it. On the other hand, we recognize that with the full control of the middle class, which has the press as one of its most important instruments in fully developed capitalism, there emerges a form of communication which, no matter how far back its origin may lie, never before influenced the epic form in a decisive way. But now it does exert such an influence. And it turns out that it confronts storytelling as no less of a stranger than did the novel, but in a more menacing way, and that it also brings about a crisis in the novel. This new form of communication is information. -...- The intelligence that came from afar—whether the spatial kind from foreign countries or the temporal kind of tradition—possessed an authority which gave it validity, even when it was not subject to verification. Information, however, lays claim to prompt verifiability. The prime requirement is that it appear “understandable in itself.” Often it is no more exact than the intelligence of earlier centuries was. But while the latter was inclined to borrow from the miraculous, it is indispensable for information to sound plausible. Because of this it proves incompatible with the spirit of storytelling. If the art of storytelling has become rare, the dissemination of information has had a decisive share in this state of affairs. Every morning brings us the news of the globe, and yet we are poor in noteworthy stories. This is because no event any longer comes to us without already being shot through with explanation. In other words, by now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling; almost everything benefits information. Actually, it is half the art of storytelling to keep a story free from explanation as one reproduces it. -...- From this story it may be seen what the nature of true storytelling is. The value of information does not survive the moment in which it was new. 3-4 “ (Benjamin 1936:3-4) lix The terms noblesse de robe and noblesse d'épée designate two intermingled, interlocked but very dissimilar halves of nobility. Robe, as the term explains, identifies nobility mostly serving the crown in the financial or judicial branches of the public administration; Epée designates nobility entirely grounded in ancestry and peerage and typically serving in the military. Things are not so clear-cut, however, as I'll try to show. lx “Sade. n'hésite pas, comme l'a montré Michel Delon, à recopier et à déformer, aux fins de sa démonstration, les compilations de récits de voyages, traités ethnographiques et romans de l'époque” (Sauvage 2006:97 ) lxi “In switching sources for his tale, Sainville has also changed voices, having gone from an imitation of the distant, uncharacterized observer of Le Voyageur Francois to a careful log-keeper like Bougainville. Nautical details suddenly abound.” (Dolan 1986:310) lxii Discussing the African dystopia in Aline et Valcour (1795). lxiii Reuland (2003:140) claims this Idée (1800) heavily borrowed from P.D. Huet's (1630-1721) Traité de l'origine des Romans lxiv “ to Hobbes, truth and likelihood in poetry have become simply a matter of correspondence to the known order of nature. Poetry must imitate the external world as it is; must represent -...- the kinds of objects that we know to exist, and the kinds of events that we know to be possible, on the basis of an empirical knowledge of nature and nature's laws “ (Abrams 1953:267 ) lxv “la nature plus bizarre que les moralistes ne nous la peignent, s'échappe à tout instant des digues que la politique de ceux-ci voudrait lui prescrire; uniforme dans ses plans, irrégulière dans ses effets, son sein toujours agité, ressemble au foyer d'un volcan d'où s'élancent tour à tour, ou des pierres précieuses servant au luxe des hommes, ou des globes de feu qui les anéantissent” (Sade 1800, no page ) lxvi “Je dois enfin répondre au reproche que l'on me fit, quand parut Aline et Valcourt. Mes pinceaux, dit-on, sont trop forts, je prête au vice des traits trop odieux; en veut-on savoir la raison ? je ne veux pas faire aimer le vice; je n'ai pas, comme Crébillon et comme Dorat, le dangereux projet de faire adorer aux femmes les personnages qui les trompent; je veux, au contraire, qu'elles les détestent; c'est le seul moyen qui puisse les empêcher d'en être dupes; et, pour y réussir, j'ai rendu ceux de mes héros qui suivent la carrière du vice; tellement effroyables, qu'ils n'inspireront bien sûrement ni pitié ni amour; en cela, j'ose le dire, je deviens plus moral que ceux qui se croyent permis de les embellir; les pernicieux ouvrages de ces auteurs ressemblent à ces fruits de l'Amérique qui, sous le plus brillant coloris, portent la mort dans leur sein; cette trahison de la nature, dont il ne nous appartient pas de dévoiler le motif, n'est pas faite pour l'homme; jamais enfin, je le répète, jamais je ne peindrai le crime que sous les couleurs de l'enfer; je veux qu'on le voie à nu, qu'on le craigne, qu'on le déteste, et je ne connais point d'autre façon pour

arriver là, que de le montrer avec toute l'horreur qui le caractérise. Malheur à ceux qui l'entourent de roses ! leurs vues ne sont pas aussi pures, et je ne les copierai jamais. Qu'on ne m'attribue donc plus, d'après ces systèmes, le roman de J*** ; jamais je n'ai fait de tels ouvrages, et je n'en ferai sûrement jamais; il n'y a que des imbéciles ou des méchants qui, malgré l'authenticité de mes dénégations, puissent me soupçonner ou m'accuser encore d'en être l'auteur, et le plus souverain mépris sera désormais la seule arme avec laquelle je combattrai leurs calomnies.” (Sade 1800, no page) lxvii “ But this calamity, virtue destroyed, is only the moral surface of a deeper catastrophe wreaked by the forces of Nature. Sade's narrative, with its repetitive thematic variations on a single debasement, brings into focus the abiding disorder of existence. Blind and chaotic, the capricious workings of Providence tumble human destiny into diverse misfortunes that reiterate the same primary experience of pain.“ (Ilie 1984:3) lxviii Parlements represented the remains of medieval check and balances (the Paris parliament dated back from XIII century ), with provincial parliaments gathering around the Parlement de Paris (granted sort of superior status and hereditary only since 1664 ). Evolving from the King's council, these courts administered justice in a number of domains, both civil and criminal, and -most of all- registered the King's decrees and other laws, after checking they conformed with the constitution of the kingdom. lxix The various Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre and countless other revolutionary leaders served in the judicial system and had at some point in time resorted to 'typographical nobility' as D'Anton, de Robespierre etc. lxx High nobility and haute robe - that is the upper strata of the group enjoying the greatest titles and privileges- led a more conspicuous group of hobereaux and basse robe living on the edge of the realm of privilege and often falling into poverty or insolvency; outside the realm of official privilege they led subordinate categories, namely the growing number of people working in connection with the legal and financial system in the case of robe. lxxi“Les romans de Sade sont rigoureusement organisés par rapport à une certaine topographie. Romans de l'enfermement, ils se situent.essentiellement à l'intérieur (s'il arrive à quelque hérome de faire de mauvaises rencontres dans des bois, elle est prestement enlevée et conduite dans le repaire de son ravisseur). Mais une maison de petites dimensions ne saurait suffire aux mises en scène du héros sadien : il lui faut un espace à la fois vaste et clos. Aussi la thématique des lieux chez Sade se ramène-t-elle essentiellement à une alternance entre le couvent et le château, structures fondamentales de la société médiévale .. Elles sont encore fondamentales à la fin du .XVIIlème siècle. Mais Sade se garde bien de situer l'action dans des architectures contemporaines. -...-Mais le Moyen Age a légué aussi à Sade certaines structures' sociales fort utiles également au jeu de forces qui travaille dans son système romanesque. Certes, là aussi, ·cette continuité du Moyen Age existe dans la vie réelle .et les structures féodales ne sont pas mortes à la veille de la Révolution.On sait même que les seigneurs s'efforcent d'en ranimer les vigueurs, et le père de Chateaubriand n'est pas le seul à tenter de..rétablir des usages qui se perdaient. Néanmoins quand Sade rappelle lui aussi ces. Structures, c'est qu'elles sont nécessaires à un certain effet romanesque. -...- Sade suppose à ses personnages une liberté dans leurs crimes qui n'était plus possible à son époque. Le libertin sadien fait enlever ses victimes par des rabatteurs, en toute impunité. Les maitres des Cent vingt journées se conduisent comme Gilles de Rais, et même Sade leur confère une impunité absolue dont Gilles de Rais fut bien loin de bénéficier. Ses fantasmes l'amènent à imaginer une société bien différente de celle dans laquelle il a vécu et qui l'a enfermé pendant trente ans, sans qu'il ait jamais eu mort d'homme sur la conscience; une société qui, .sans être non plus exactement la société médiévale, se rapproche du moins de l'image que Sade s'en est faite : période de la toute-puissance du seigneur qu'aucun frein ne peut arrêter. Un autre aspect de la féodalité a marqué Sade et l'a attiré: l'organisation verticale, si l'on peut dire, du pouvoir, la vassalité à niveaux multiples, avec le suzerain au sommet; construction qui, en multipliant les dépendances, se prête aussi à une multiplication d'abus de pouvoirs. Telle est bien la société des Cent vingt journées ou encore du couvent des Infortunes. Entre le maître et la victime, s'interposent les exécuteurs, les surveillants, les maquerelles qui, eux aussi, sont susceptibles d'exercer un pouvoir et par conséquent des sévices. Le Moyen Age est enfin pour Sade le lieu d'une réflexion politique proprement dite. li exprime volontiers une nostalgie de cette époque antérieure à la monarchie absolue où les seigneurs avaient véritablement un pouvoir. Provençal, il accepte malle centralisme: il accepte surtout mal la domestication de la noblesse. “ (Didier 1982:304307). Benedettini (2005:108) sees the image of de Fontanis 'in deep shit' as a rendition of an image from medieval literature “ Vogliamo terminare constatando che la caduta nel porcile del Presidente del Parlamento di Aix è in linea con la narrativa medievale, da identificarsi nel modello del cavaliere sul letamaio “ lxxii “Quoi qu'il en soit, le Parlement d'Aix va réparer les torts causés au marquis de Sade par une procédure aussi'

extraordinairement rapide que le fut celle de la condamnation , de 1772. Le 22 juin 1778, Me Gabriel, procureur du Marquis (c'est-à-dire son mandataire: nous dirions aujourd'hui son avou), présente une requête au Parlement et, le jour même, celui-ci la reçoit en la forme. Il suffira ensuite de trois semaines pour transformer la terrible condamnation de 1772 en une simple admonestation. Sade a certainement bénéficié de la grande réforme de 1774. Maupeou avait supprimé les anciens Parlements qui furent rétablis le 12 novembre 1774. -Lés magistrats de carrière étaient ainsi revenus siéger et remplacer nombre de magistrats d'occasion qui étaient tout ..à la dévotion du Chancelier. Or, l'on sait tout le rôle 'que jouait, pour le malheur de Sade, la rivalité entre son beau-père, le président de Montreuil, et le chancelier Maupeou. “ (Parrat in Colloque d'Aix:54). In 1778 Sade's 1772 death sentence is swiftly commuted into a simple warning. lxxiii Sade yearning for revenge can be clearly identified here, when de Fontanis faces henchmen whom he believes to be troubled spirits: “A ces mots, quatre de ces esprits physiques s'emparent vigoureusement de Fontanis, et le mettent en un instant nu comme la main, sans en tirer autre chose que des pleurs, des cris et une sueur fétide qui le couvrait des pieds à la tête. - Qu'en ferons-nous maintenant, dit l'un d'eux. - Attends, répondit celui qui avait l'air du chef, j'ai ici la liste des quatre principaux meurtres qu'il a commis juridiquement, lisons-la lui. En 1750, il condamna à la roue un malheureux qui n'avait jamais eu d'autre tort que de lui avoir refusé sa fille dont le scélérat voulait abuser. En 1754, il proposa à un homme de lui sauver la vie pour deux mille écus ; celui-ci ne les pouvant donner, il le fit pendre. En 1760, sachant qu'un homme de sa ville avait tenu quelque propos sur son compte, il le condamna au feu l'année d'après comme sodomite, quoique ce malheureux eût une femme et une troupe d'enfants, toutes choses démentant son crime. En 1772, un jeune homme de distinction de la province ayant voulu par une vengeance badine étriller une courtisane qui lui avait fait un mauvais présent, cet indigne butor fit de cette plaisanterie une affaire criminelle, il traita la chose de meurtre, d'empoisonnement, entraîna tous ses confrères à cette ridicule opinion, perdit le jeune homme, le ruina et le fit condamner par contumace à la mort, ne pouvant venir à bout de saisir sa personne. Voilà ses principaux crimes, décidez, mes amis. Aussitôt une voix s'élève : - Le talion, messieurs, le talion ; il a condamné injustement à la roue, je veux qu'il soit roué. - J'opine à la pendaison, dit un autre, et par les mêmes motifs de mon confrère. - Il sera brûlé, dit le troisième, et pour avoir osé employer ce supplice injustement, et pour l'avoir souvent mérité lui-même. - Donnons-lui l'exemple de la clémence et de la modération, mes camarades, dit le chef, et ne prenons notre texte que dans sa quatrième aventure : une catin fouettée est un crime digne de mort aux yeux de cette ganache imbécile, qu'il soit fustigé lui-même. “ ( Sade, 'Le président mystifié' in Historiettes, contes et fabliaux , 1788, n.p ). Clear mentions of l'affaire Rose Keller and of Sade's adjudicated debauchery are clearly visible. lxxiv “ now the chief question has become whether catharsis should be retained in the critical vocabulary and, if so, with what restrictions upon its meaning. Ironically, the abuse has occurred mainly in the twentieth century, a time of accelerated achievement in criticism through deepened and broadened inquiry. -...- Not only are no two modern texts identical, but the translations are all elaborations on the sketchy Greek original; no one has resisted the temptation to fill in the outline that Aristotle left -...-. Commentators have traditionally given us the choice between a medical and a religious metaphor: is catharsis a purging or a purifying?“ (Bennett 1981:204-205) lxxv “ Else shows that both of these views have no basis in the text of the Poetics, but are derived from the use of catharsis in other Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian contexts. -...- Else, then, makes catharsis an "operational factor within the tragic structure" rather than the "be-all and end-all of tragedy itself." We now have three major interpretations of catharsis: "purgation" of emotions ; "purification" of emotions; and that process by which the criminal and sinful acts committed by the tragic hero are shown to be pure of guilt, and which thus establishes the conditions under which the emotion of pity may be shown the hero.“ (Golden 1962:51-52) lxxvi Hardison's article deals with Renaissance, but his suggestion can apply well beyond that period. lxxvii Rather than an indigenous woman from an Island in the Southern Seas, Zilia is portrayed as a Celtic beauty from

a chivalric novel; later in the novel Sainville expressly compares her to Aline. In spite of Tamoè's 'divine' laws that exclude arranged marriages, Orai's marriage is an arranged one, for Zamè admits he wanted to reward one of the island's most prominent craftsmen (Zilia's father). Again, Sade criticizes arranged marriages and very likely the intermarriages between nobility (Zamè is a King after all) and burghers (artisans, traders etc ) who epitomize the antecedents of noblesse de robe. In other words, such marriages cannot work for Sade; that is why Orai isn't interested in the otherwise superbly attractive Zilia. lxxviii Italics in the source text. lxxix It is revealed how Dorci's investigation actually framed the real culprit, who is now detained: Dorci's own brother. lxxx Many plot contrivances in the Nouvelle Espagnole recur in 'Florville et Courval'. lxxxi For example, to begin a journey through the desert, Léonore camouflages as a “nègre”( Sade 1795-1:903 ); in their secluded world of debauchery, Blamont and Dolbourg go under the assumed names of Delcour and Mirville. lxxxii For example Léonore ignores she's the lost daughter of the de Blamont couple. lxxxiii For hundreds of pages readers ignore who “Léonore” might be, and Elizabeth de Kerneuil is dealt with as a separate character. lxxxiv A group of inane libertine magistrates send their invitation to Léonore and Clémentine under the assumed name of prominent Duc de Corteréal ( Sade 1795-1:1050 ). Another occasion for Sade to compare scheming, evil yet inane magistrates with true aristocrats whose prestige robins can only dream of. lxxxv Sophie (for a while mistaken for the lost daughter of de Blamont ) recovers her identity as daughter of a greedy peasant woman; Léonore (fictional name in the digression ) recovers her identity first as “Elizabeth de Kerneuil”, then as “Claire de Blamont”. The Nouvelle Espagnole is about the tragedy that occurs when dom Juan murders Léontine once he thinks he cannot marry her because she's his half-sister. Upon confessing his crime, dom Juan learns how proof had been produced to the contrary, and he is shown written permission to marry her. lxxxvi “ the narrative chain, with each event connected to the next by reasoned causal links, marks the victory of reason over chaos, of society over the aberrancy of crime, and restitutes a world in which aetiological histories offer the best solution to the apparently unexplainable -...-. The logic of the detective narrative in its classic guise results in the creation of a new and putatively ultimate narrative which stages fully the dynamics of the transference. -...it is not only a matter of combining archeological fragments, or clues, into a narrative chain that links past and present and "solves" the problem of their interrelation. Now the present itself is shown to be the place of struggle and dialogue in the construction of a narrative that gives meaning to the past by writing its retrospective interpretation through the creation of its form. What we thought at first to be a relatively straightforward - albeit mentally and emotionally taxing - recapture of the past turns out to be something quite different: the effort, variously collaborative and agonistic, to construct, interpret, and control the past in the present. At issue, for both Freud and Sherlock Holmes in the revised models of their methods, is not so much the history of the past, or at least not the history of the past directly, as its present narrative discourse. This is the space of dialogue, struggle, construction. In the discipline and mastery of the transference lies the significant work of interpretation and understanding. Turning from the detective story to other narrative modes, one could find the same principles at work in a number of narratives, especially those that dramatize the relations of tellers and listeners, and render the interpretation of the story told somehow difficult or problematic.“ (Brooks 1994:47-64) lxxxvii The story narrates the exploit of a detective that locates and recovers a mysterious letter, which in turn had been stolen from a Queen and was used by an unscrupulous minister to blackmail her under the threat the letter posed to her reputation and honor (presumably it was about an adulterous affair ). lxxxviii “we authors recognize the sublime not by an act of analytic or comparative judgment, but by our transport.” (Pater 1873: 133-134). lxxxix Both murderous libertines. African Muslim roi de Sennar loves to entrap foreigners as an excuse for torturing them.