Lautréamont and Sade (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

Lautréamont and Sade (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

In Lautréamont and Sade , originally published in 1949, Maurice Blanchot forcefully distinguishes his critical project from the major intellectual currents of his day, surrealism and existentialism. Today, Lautréamont and Sade, these unique figures in the histories of literature and thought, are as crucially relevant to theorists of language, reason, and cruelty as they were in post-war Paris. "Sade's Reason," in part a review of Pierre Klossowski's Sade, My Neighbor , was first published in Les Temps modernes . Blanchot offers Sade's reason, a corrosive rational unreasoning, apathetic before the cruelty of the passions, as a response to Sartre's Hegelian politics of commitment. "The Experience of Lautréamont," Blanchot's longest sustained essay, pursues the dark logic of Maldoror through the circular gravitation of its themes, the grinding of its images, its repetitive and transformative use of language, and the obsessive metamorphosis of its motifs. Blanchot's Lautréamont emerges through this search for experience in the relentless unfolding of language. This treatment of the experience of Lautréamont unmistakably alludes to Georges Bataille's "inner experience." Republishing the work in 1963, Blanchot prefaced it with an essay distinguishing his critical practice from that of Heidegger. In Lautréamont and Sade, originally published in 1949, Maurice Blanchot forcefully distinguishes his critical project from the major intellectual currents of his day, surrealism and existentialism. Today, Lautréamont and Sade, these unique figures in the histories of literature and thought, are as crucially relevant to theorists of language, reason, and cruelty as they were in post-war Paris. “Sade’s Reason,” in part a review of Pierre Klossowski’s Sade, My Neighbor, was first published in Les Temps modernes. Blanchot offers Sade’s reason, a corrosive rational unreasoning, apathetic before the cruelty of the passions, as a response to Sartre’s Hegelian politics of commitment. “The Experience of Lautréamont,” Blanchot’s longest sustained essay, pursues the dark logic of Maldoror through the circular gravitation of its themes, the grinding of its images, its repetitive and transformative use of language, and the obsessive metamorphosis of its motifs. Blanchot’s Lautréamont emerges through this search for experience in the relentless unfolding of language. This treatment of the experience of Lautréamont unmistakably alludes to Georges Bataille’s “inner experience.” Republishing the work in 1963, Blanchot prefaced it with an essay distinguishing his critical practice from that of Heidegger. In Lautréamont and Sade, originally published in 1949, Maurice Blanchot forcefully distinguishes his critical project from the major intellectual currents of his day, surrealism and existentialism. Today, Lautréamont and Sade, these unique figures in the histories of literature and thought, are as crucially relevant to theorists of language, reason, and cruelty as they were in post-war Paris. “Sade’s Reason,” in part a review of Pierre Klossowski’s Sade, My Neighbor, was first published in Les Temps modernes. Blanchot offers Sade’s reason, a corrosive rational unreasoning, apathetic before the cruelty of the passions, as a response to Sartre’s Hegelian politics of commitment. “The Experience of Lautréamont,” Blanchot’s longest sustained essay, pursues the dark logic of Maldoror through the circular gravitation of its themes, the grinding of its images, its repetitive and transformative use of language, and the obsessive metamorphosis of its motifs. Blanchot’s Lautréamont emerges through this search for experience in the relentless unfolding of language. This treatment of the experience of Lautréamont unmistakably alludes to Georges Bataille’s “inner experience.” Republishing the work in 1963, Blanchot prefaced it with an essay distinguishing his critical practice from that of Heidegger. Stanford has published five other works by Maurice Blanchot: The Book to Come (2003), Faux Pas (2001), The Instant of My Death (Blanchot) /Demeure: Fiction and Testimony (Jacques Derrida) (2000) , Friendship (1997), and The Work of Fire (1995). LAUTRÉAMONT AND SADE By Maurice Blanchot, Stuart Kendall, Michelle Kendall Stanford University Press Copyright © 1963 Les Éditions de Minuit All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8047-5035-6 Contents Preface: What is the Purpose of Criticism?.................................1§ Sade's Reason............................................................7§ The Experience of Lautréamont............................................43Notes......................................................................165 CHAPTER 1 § Sade's Reason In 1797, La Nouvelle Justine, ou les Malheurs de la Vertu suivie del'Histoire de Juliette, sa soeur was published in Holland. This monumentalwork—nearly four thousand pages long, which its authorwrote in several drafts, augmenting its length ever m