If we accept (as I am prepared to accept, since it makes sense more than
everything else I have
heard about so far ) that there is not such a thing as the
primitive man,
when it comes to evaluating the primitive "quoziente intellettivo",
and if we
acknowledge Gian Battista Vico's theorysof poetry as the first absolute
human activity
(the metaphorizing of
the universe into language by mean of a direct rapport of the mind with the
surrounding reality) ,
we should recognize that De Sade's ambiguity is that of all men:
is he sophisticatelly cruel or is he simply natural?
(and yet, being a Marxist moralist, as I have stressed in the other in the
course of the same discussion on British Poets,
I am not ready to bet I would release De Sade from his prison and let him
roam
free in my own town. But he is distance and distance enables me to read his
work between the lines.)
Actually, last month, when I was on the point of sitting an important exam
in a hot southern
day and I had in front of me the entire history of English Literature, the
entire tradition of
linguistic and socio-linguistic theories to re-absorb
as a sponge, I found comfort, between three and
five o'clock pm, in some passages
of the Third Dialogue in the Philosophy of Boudoir ( a book I pull down
from the highest shell, full of dust,
what I had bought exactly at the age of Twenty, which is - as Geraldine
stressed - the right age to read De Sade.)
But then, again, how can we be
sure to be totally immune from relapses into infantile likings. As for
myself, from the very minute of my 30th birthday , I decided that time
would have
gone backwards,
and I do practice a systematic return to infancy. I have
now reached the age of 21. And I am only ten years to go to reach again my
favourite age.
Erminia
----- Original Message -----
From: domfox <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2000 2:11 PM
Subject: Re: De Sade
> Kathy Acker once observed that de Sade was responsible for an
> ethics/politics whose most recent manifestation might more properly be
known
> as...Reaganism.
>
>
----- Original Message -----
From: massey susanne <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 5:20 AM
Subject: Re: De Sade
>
>
>
> > Kathy Acker once observed that de Sade was responsible for an
> > ethics/politics whose most recent manifestation might more properly be
> known
> > as...Reaganism.
> >
> >
>
>
> And..... was she...right?
> ?
> ?
> ?
>
> EP
>
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