
The Libertine Reader
Eroticism and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century France
Michel Feher(Editor)
Zone Books (Publisher)
Published on 31. October 1997
Book
Hardback
1328 pages
978-0-942299-42-7 (ISBN)
Description
Irresistibly charming or shamelessly deceitful, remarkably persuasive or uselessly verbose, everything one loves to hate-or hates to love-about "French lovers" and their self-styled reputation can be traced to eighteenth-century libertine novels. Obsessed with strategies of seduction, speculating endlessly about the motives and goals of lovers, the idle aristocrats who populate these novels are exclusively preoccupied with their erotic life. Deprived of other battlefields to fulfill their thirst for glory, libertine noblemen seek to conquer the women of their class without falling into the trap of love, while their female prey attempt to enjoy the pleasures of love without sacrificing their honor. Yet, despite the licentious mores of the declining Old Regime, men and women are still expected to pay lip service to an austere code of morals. Since they are constantly asked to denounce their own practices, their erotic war games are governed by a double constraint: whatever they feel or intend, the heroes of libertine literature can neither say what they mean nor mean what they say. The Libertine Reader includes all the varieties of libertine strategies: from the successful cunning of Mme de T_____ in Vivant Denon's No Tomorrow to the ill-fated genius of Mme de Merteuil in Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons; from the laborious sentimental education of Meilcour in Crebillon fils's The Wayward Head and Heart to the hazardous master plan of the French ambassador in Prevost's The Story of a Modern Greek Woman. The discrepancies between the characters' words and their true intentions-the libertine double entendre-are exposed through the speaking vaginas in Diderot's The Indiscreet Jewels and the wandering soul of Amanzei in Crebillon fils's The Sofa, while the contrasts between natural and civilized-or degenerate-erotics are the subjects of both Diderot's Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage and Laclos's On the Education of Women. Finally, Sade's Florville and Courval shows that destiny itself is on the side of libertinism.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: From College Freshman to College Graduate Student
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 50 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-942299-42-7 (9780942299427)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Michel Feher is a founding editor and publisher of Zone Books. He is the author of Powerless by Design: The Age of the International Community and the editor of Fragments for a History of The Human Body (with Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi).