Sade, le tournant fantastique

In Sade's Histoire de Juliette, the heroine's crossing of the Alps coincides with a shift from the realistic world characteristic of the erotic novel to the realm of the fantastic. Two episodes mark this turn: Juliette's visit to Durand, and her encounter with the giant Minski. Durand...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRomance studies : a journal of the University of Wales Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 131 - 140
Main Author Delon, Michel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 01.07.2014
Subjects
D. A. F. de Sade
fantastic novel
Gothic novel
Histoire de Juliette
imagination
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Summary:In Sade's Histoire de Juliette, the heroine's crossing of the Alps coincides with a shift from the realistic world characteristic of the erotic novel to the realm of the fantastic. Two episodes mark this turn: Juliette's visit to Durand, and her encounter with the giant Minski. Durand's magical skills cause desire and accomplishment to merge, while her fortune-telling accurately predicts and determines the subsequent direction of the plot. The superhuman capacities of the giant-man Minski transgress the libertines' rational views in a similarly flagrant way. Playing on mythological imagery and integrating elements from the Gothic novel, Histoire de Juliette marks a turn towards the literary genre of the fantastic in keeping with the novel status the eighteenth century attributes to the imagination. Sadean writing is an infinitely imaginative process that cannot be confined to the real.
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ISSN:0263-9904
1745-8153
DOI:10.1179/0263990414Z.00000000066