Erotism: Death and SensualityTaboo and sacrifice, transgression and language, death and sensuality-Georges Bataille pursues these themes with an original, often startling perspective. He challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ranges from Emily Bronte to Sade, from St. Therese to Claude Levi-Strauss and Dr. Kinsey; and the subjects he covers include prostitution, mythical ecstasy, cruelty, and organized war. Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is "a psychological quest not alien to death. |
Contents
FOREWORD | 7 |
INTRODUCTION | 11 |
Part | 27 |
Eroticism in inner experience | 29 |
The link between taboos and death | 40 |
Taboos related to reproduction | 49 |
Affinities between reproduction and death | 55 |
Transgression | 63 |
prostitution | 129 |
Beauty | 140 |
Part Two SOME ASPECTS OF EROTICISM | 147 |
Kinsey the underworld and work | 149 |
De Sades sovereign man | 164 |
De Sade and the normal man | 177 |
The enigma of incest | 197 |
Mysticism and sensuality | 221 |
Murder hunting and war | 71 |
Murder and sacrifice | 81 |
From religious sacrifice to eroticism | 89 |
Sexual plethora and death | 94 |
Transgression in marriage and in orgy | 109 |
Christianity | 117 |
Sanctity eroticism and solitude | 252 |
A preface to Madame Edwarda | 265 |
CONCLUSION | 273 |
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Common terms and phrases
anguish animal nature animal sexuality appear asexual reproduction aspect attitude awareness behaviour bound Christianity civilisation Claude Lévi-Strauss condemned consciousness continuity creatures cross cousins death degradation denial deny desire discontinuity disorder divine element emotion erotic eroticism essentially excess existence exuberance fact feeling forbidden fundamental give horror human imagine implies impulses incest individual inner experience intense Kinsey Report language Lascaux least less Lévi-Strauss limits linked live man's Marcel Mauss Marquis de Sade marriage matrilinear Maurice Blanchot means morality murder mystical experience nakedness Neanderthal never object obscenity opposed opposite organised organs orgy paradox philosophy pleasure plethora possible primitive profane world prostitution reason religion religious reproduction Roger Caillois rules sacred world sacrifice Sade Sade's sanctity sense sensuality sexual activity sexual reproduction significance solitude sovereign taboo and transgression temptation thing thought tion transcends transition truth Upper Paleolithic victim violence whole woman