Literature and Evil
by Georges Bataille
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Book Summary Information
Author: Georges BatailleTranslator: Alastair Hamilton
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-04-01
ISBN: 0714503460
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd
Book Reviews of Literature and Evil
Book Review: Literature and Evil
Summary: 5 Stars
Georges Battaille throws down a challange to Jean-Paul Sartre, who held that "literature is inncocent". Bataille, in his examination of such figures as Emily Bronte, Sade, Baudelaire, Genet, Kafka and Michelet, and the component of "evil" in their works, argues that literature is, in fact, "guilty" and that, moreover, it must acknowledge itself as such. In his reading of these literary figures, Bataille proceeds to analyse literature's complicity with evil and how this enables it reach a fuller level of communication. Drawing on Freud, he "eroticises" literary creativity and contends that the notion of "Art for art's sake", which emerges as a reaction to a fragmented and reified social world dominated by utilitarianism and commodity fetishism, is actually a subterfuge, literature masquerading as innocent under the mantle of "pure art", in order to rechannel the forces that are dammed up owing to the repressions imposed by culture. Though elliptical and opaque, this book is a challenging and fascinating study, which has a potential for laying the foundations for a philosophy of composition that underwrites the aesthetic of evil and explores its relation to the overarching forces of institutional and administrative surveillance.
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