The black sun of the Enlightenment. Sade philosopher

Born in Paris on 2 June 1740 (sign of Gemini), in one of the most important palaces in Paris, the residence of the Bourbon-Condé princes, Sade played with the little prince Louis Joseph until the age of four. His mother is the niece of Cardinal Richelieu. In the paternal family tree, however, we find the Laura praised by Petrarca. Sade’s interest in philosophy was probably due to his paternal uncle, Jacques-François-Paul-Alphonse. Abbot for convenience, an inveterate libertine, the uncle was a man of great culture. He was a friend of Voltaire. Sade attended the same high school in Paris as the author of Zadig, witnessing and suffering corporal punishment. In the Jesuit colleges it was normality, recalls Marco Menin in the first pages of his magnificent book, which opens with a succinct biography of Sade. Just to clarify and punctuate his life. And put it into perspective. He enlists in the King’s Guard Cavalrymen. He fights at the front (Seven Years’ War). But the strict military rules are not for him. He soon dedicates himself to pleasure. To libertinism. He reads. He frequents brothels. They force him into marriage to put an end to his reckless conduct. He wins his wife and mother-in-law with his good manners. But, a few months later, here is the first arrest: a prostitute accuses him of masturbatory practices performed with blessed wafers: he turned 23. He will spend a good part of his life in prison.

This biographical preamble serves to outline his mythical figure, and to note how certain of his deeds probably have a relationship with the texts he read, plus an imaginary impact on those he wrote (but we must not confuse biography with artistic production) . Menin’s book aims to demystify the “divine marquis” to better analyze his thoughts, inserting him into precise cultural coordinates. Which are those of the Enlightenment. Sade’s philosophical reflection, disseminated in his novels, letters and theatrical texts, is a continuous dialectical comparison with the philosophes.

We find anticlerical criticism and materialism in the readings of Holbach and Helvétius, for example; great attention is paid to medical thought; the anthropological exaltation of passions emerges in Rousseau, as does his sentimentalist philosophy, which Sade however overturns (using the same tools: the epistolary novel and the edifying story). The pages on “feminine” are noteworthy. Menin reconstructs a “cartography” of femininity, focusing on different elements and figures present in his texts, highlighting the opposition and complementarity of Justine and Juliette.

Marco Menin
The black sun of the Enlightenment. Sade philosopher
Carocci, 326 pp., 29 euros