Aesthetic Value in Philosophy in the Boudoir

When we talk about aesthetic value, we need to trace back the notion “aesthetics.”

Aesthetics deals with the sense of beauty which arouses the beholder’s perception of art.

“The history of the word ‘aesthetics’ goes back to Alexander Baumgarten, who began using the word in a philosophical context in 1735 to refer to the arts as ‘sensitive representations’ that are not merely sensations but are connected with feeling” (Fenner 7, emphasis original). Aesthetics has undergone a radical transformation in the last hundred years. The changes brought about by the modern thought have necessitated a rethinking of the relationship between the individual and reality. “There are three senses of the term.

(1) In ancient Greek philosophy, it refers to lived, felt experience as it is obtained through the senses. (2) What distinguishes the beauty in art between classicism and romanticism is subjective autonomy. (3) Since the Enlightenment, it has been long considered as a science of art, beauty and sublimity” (Cazeaux ed. xiii, xv, xvi). In the era of Enlightenment, Kant establishes aesthetics as an independent discipline worthy of conceptual investigation in its own right. The concept of “aesthetics” has been almost related to the idea of “beauty” particularly since Kant in the eighteenth century—the great age of aesthetics. Apart from sublimity, beauty is the only aesthetic quality most considered by artists and thinkers at that time. Beauty refers to “pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing, an emotion, an affection of our volitional and appreciative nature. It is a value, which is positive in the beholder’s immediate perception” (Santayana 33-34).

What distinguishes aesthetics from morality is that “aesthetics has only to do with enjoyment” (Santayana 34). When we peruse a literary work, we to some extent obtain enjoyment, which keeps us spirited.

In my thesis, I try to unravel Sadeian aesthetics of libertinage in Philosophy in the

Boudoir. I choose the word “libertinage” instead of “obscenity” or “pornography,” for

libertinage manifests Sade’s enlightened spirit all his life and his work. Moreover, Sadeian aesthetics can be not only as manifestation of scientia sexualis (in Frappier-Mazur’s words) but also as ars erotica in transgression (in Foucault’s words). In terms of ars erotica in transgression, the language and performance in the boudoir are the two main facets which consist of aesthetic value in Philosophy in the Boudoir. Such aesthetic value is inherent in the emotional responses to the narrative of transgression and in the extreme pleasure of libertine body. I will explicate these two levels in Chapter One and Chapter Two.

Chapter One

Emotional Responses in the Narrative of Transgression

I referred to profanation when I was discussing beauty.

—Georges Bataille, Death and Sensuality

In the “Introduction,” I propose that Sadeian aesthetics of libertinage in Philosophy in the Boudoir can be manifested in two different levels: “telling” (the narrative of

transgression) and “showing” (the libertine body). Some literature reviews focus on several facets in the narrative of transgression and the libertine body respectively. In this chapter, I use Bataille’s erotic discourse²² to explicate how the following facets in the narrative of transgression in the boudoir manifest aesthetic value, which arouse the libertine’s emotional responses: “Sensuality in Blasphemy,” “Egotism in Destruction,”

“Delight in Cruelty,” and “Jouissance in Communication.”

Bataille is one of the most influential thinkers to have seriously considered Sade’s writing an aesthetic form of erotic discourse. He pinpoints that Sade’s work stands for the alternated, “aesthetic” form of eroticism where all the brakes are off: concerning himself with words, Sade attacks conventional meanings by deviating from respectable usage and by mixing accepted terms with forbidden, vulgar words. “Sade takes a central place in Bataille’s association of spending, sadism, violence, and eroticism, and implies rather than directly imposes these associations onto his work” (Roche 169). Bataille’s notion

“eroticism” is based on the analysis of Sade’s work. He draws from diverse influences of Sade and uses diverse modes of discourse to create the notion “eroticism,” which implies a mixture of narrative and art. It is always Bataille’s strategy to mix art with filthy things,

22 Georges Bataille (1897-1962), French essayist, philosophical theorist and novelist, often called the

“metaphysician of evil,” is the author of an oeuvre both abundant and diverse: readings, poems, and essays on innumerable subjects such as the mysticism of economy, philosophy, arts, and eroticism. “Bataille, best known as a philosopher of excess and noted for his subversive concepts such as transgression, expenditure, and heterology, is one of the most obvious descendants of Sade” (Lai 88). “Bataille seems obsessed by and writes erratically on topics such as ‘death,’ ‘excess,’ ‘transgression,’ ‘eroticism,’ ‘evil,’ ‘prostitution,’ and

‘de Sade” in an unconventional manner” (Jenks 87, emphasis original). For Bataille, erotic conduct is the opposite of normal one as spending is the opposite of accumulating.

publishing ruminations on transgressive and aesthetic discourse. Bataille’s erotic work, categorized as “literature of transgression,” has gradually matured to reveal the considerable philosophical and aesthetic depth. Like Sade, Bataille takes very seriously the problem of eroticism in the narrative of transgression and its eccentric yet powerful relation to aesthetics. What is undeniable is that Sade and Bataille share a number of thematic and theoretical commonalities, in particular on the subject of “human nature and sexuality.” The overcoming of restraints on sexuality through the narrative of transgression is clearly a commonality between Sade and Bataille, which will sublimate every deviant aspect in erotic discourse.