Sade: The Invention of the Libertine Body

A new model for examining Sade and his creations.

A new model for examining Sade and his creations.

Decried as a misogynist and pornographer, imprisoned for debauchery and for his writings, there is scarcely a cultural figure as flamboyant and controversial as the Marquis de Sade, the father of the new libertine body. But this is not, Hénaff maintains, the only way to see Sade. In this long-awaited English translation, Hénaff says that Sade should be discussed less for the sensual heat of his writing and more for the larger poetic and economic model his work represents.

With unabashed candor, Sade describes bodies in terms not of flesh but of production, use, exchange, and waste. In his writing, this libertine self is unleashed from its constraints, no longer bound by old conceptions of desire and traditions of courtship. Hénaff’s argument that Sade is a sign of his times-exposing the courtly facade of a society unable to preserve itself-reveals dark, disquieting secrets about the direction of civilization. The libertine body, he says, is a child of this new order.

ISBN 0-8166-2536-0 Cloth £34.50 $49.95xx

ISBN 0-8166-2537-9 Paper £14.00 $19.95x

296 Pages 5 7/8 x 9 October

Translation inquiries: University of Minnesota Press

Marcel Hénaff is a philosopher and anthropologist in the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego.

Xavier Callahan received the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund award for her translations of works by Graciela Reyes. She lives on Vashon Island, Washington.