Sade, ou la tentation totalitaire: etude sur l'anthropologie litteraire dans 'La Nouvelle Justine' et 'L'Histoire de Juliette.'(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-OCT-03

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COPYRIGHT 2003 Modern Humanities Research Association

Sade: The Libertine Novels. By JOHN PHILLIPS. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press. 2001. x+204 pp. ISBN 0-7453-1598-4.

Sade, ou la tentation totalitaire: etude sur l'anthropologie litteraire dans 'La Nouvelle Justine' et 'L'Histoire de Juliette'. By SVEIN-EIRIK FAUSKEVAG. (Les Dixhuitiemes siecles, 49) Paris: Champion. 2001. 199 pp. ISBN 2-7453-0329-5.

Taken together, these books indicate the considerable range, indeed the professional division, of Sade studies. Each is of great interest, but they have no problematic in common. John Phillips's work, firstly, can be read as a kind of antidote to the tendentious, polemical uses of Sade's name and work that have abounded in the French-speaking world since the time of the Romantics, some of which now circulate widely in anglophone daily culture. It might well be claimed in fact that Sade, while one of the French authors most talked about, is still one of the least read. Phillips rightly declares his suspicion of the many 'ideologically motivated' biographies of Sade, and refers to a long history of stereotypical readings (e.g. p. 23), but does not engage in lengthy refutations. Instead, he defines a relatively narrow...

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