Libertine Novel
The libertine novel was an 18th-century literary genre of which the roots lay in the European but mainly French libertine tradition. The genre effectively ended with the French Revolution. Themes of libertine novels were anti-clericalism, anti-establishment and eroticism. Authors include Cyrano de Bergerac ('' L'Autre monde ou les états et empires de la Lune'', 1657), Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (''Les Égarements du cœur et de l'esprit'', 1736; '' Le Sopha, conte moral'', 1742), Denis Diderot ('' Les bijoux indiscrets'', 1748), the Marquis de Sade ('' L'Histoire de Juliette'', 1797–1801) and Choderlos de Laclos ('' Les Liaisons dangereuses'', 1782). Other famous titles are '' Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier des Chartreux'' (1741) and '' Thérèse Philosophe'' (1748). Precursors to the libertine writers were Théophile de Viau (1590–1626) and Charles de Saint-Évremond (1610–1703), who were inspired by Epicurus and the publication of Petronius Gaius P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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18th Century In Literature
Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the years 1700–1799. European literature in the 18th century European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama, satire, essays, and novels) produced in Europe during this period. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 '' Robinson Crusoe'' is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary novel, the sentimental novel, histories, the gothic novel and the libertine novel. 18th century Europe started in the Age of Enlightenment and gradually moved towards Romanticism. In the visual arts, it was the period of Neoclassicism. The Enlightenment The 18th century in Europe was the Age of Enlightenment, and literature explored themes of social upheaval, reversals of personal status, political sa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Les Liaisons Dangereuses
''Les Liaisons dangereuses'' (; English: ''Dangerous Liaisons'') is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu on March 23, 1782. It is the story of the Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil and the Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont, two amoral lovers-turned-rivals who amuse themselves by ruining others and who ultimately destroy each other. It has been seen as depicting the corruption and depravity of the French nobility shortly before the French Revolution, and thereby attacking the Ancien Régime despite having been written nearly a decade prior to those events. The author aspired to "write a work which departed from the ordinary, which made a noise, and which would remain on earth after his death". As an epistolary novel, the book is composed of letters written by the various characters to each other. In particular, the letters between Valmont and the Marquise make up the majority of the plot, along with those of Cécile ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Justine (de Sade Novel)
''Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue'' (French: ''Justine, ou Les Malheurs de la Vertu'') is a 1791 novel by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade. ''Justine'' is set just before the French Revolution in France and tells the story of a young girl who goes under the name of Thérèse. Her story is recounted to Madame de Lorsange while defending herself for her crimes, en route to punishment and death. She explains the series of misfortunes that led to her present situation. History of the work ''Justine'' (original French title: ''Les infortunes de la vertu'') was an early work by the Marquis de Sade, written in two weeks in 1787 while he was imprisoned in the Bastille. It is a novella (187 pages) with relatively little of the obscenity that characterised his later writing, as it was written in the classical style (which was fashionable at the time), with much verbose and metaphorical description. A much extended and more graphic version, en ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Story Of O
''Story of O'' (, ) is an erotic novel written by French author Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage, with the original French text published in 1954 by Jean-Jacques Pauvert. Desclos did not reveal herself as the author until 1994, 40 years after the initial publication. Desclos stated she wrote the novel as a series of love letters to her lover Jean Paulhan, who had admired the work of the Marquis de Sade. The novel shares with the latter themes such as love, dominance, and submission. Plot ''Story of O'' is a tale of female submission involving a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer named O, who is taught to be constantly available for oral, vaginal, and anal intercourse, offering herself to any male who belongs to the same secret society as her lover. She is regularly stripped, blindfolded, chained, and whipped; her anus is widened by increasingly large plugs; her labium is pierced and her buttocks are branded. The story begins when O's lover, Ren ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thérèse The Philosopher
''Thérèse Philosophe'' (''Therese the Philosopher'') is a 1748 French novel ascribed to Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, or, according to a minority opinion, Denis Diderot and others. It has been chiefly regarded as a pornographic novel, which accounts for its massive sales in 18th-century France. The novel represents a public conveyance (and arguably perversion) for some ideas of the Philosophes. Summary The narrative starts with Therese, sexually precocious in spite of herself, from solid bourgeois stock, being placed by her mother in a convent when she is 11 years old. There she eventually becomes sick because her pleasure principle is not permitted to express itself, putting her body into disorder, and bringing her close to the grave until her mother finally yanks her out of the convent at age 23. She then becomes a student of Father Dirrag, a Jesuit who secretly teaches materialism. Therese spies on Dirrag counseling her fellow student, Mlle. Eradice, and preyi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Darnton
Robert Choate Darnton (born May 10, 1939) is an American cultural historian and academic librarian who specializes in 18th-century France. He was director of the Harvard University Library from 2007 to 2016. Life Darnton was born in New York City. He graduated from Phillips Academy in 1957 and Harvard University in 1960, attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, and earned a PhD (DPhil) in history from Oxford in 1964, where he studied with Richard Cobb, among others. The title of his thesis was ''Trends in radical propaganda on the eve of the French Revolution (1782–1788)''. He worked as reporter at ''The New York Times'' from 1964 to 1965. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1965 to 1968. Joining the Princeton University faculty in 1968, he was appointed Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982. He was president of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies from 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sodom, Or The Quintessence Of Debauchery
''Sodom'' is an obscene Restoration closet drama, published in 1684. The work has been attributed to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, though its authorship is disputed. Determining the date of composition and attribution are complicated owing mostly to misattribution of evidence for and against Rochester's authorship in Restoration and later texts. Plot The play consists of five acts in rhyming couplets. There are two prologues, two epilogues and a short final speech. The play begins with Bolloxinion, King of Sodom, authorising same-sex sodomy as an acceptable sexual practice within the realm. General Buggeranthos reports that this policy is welcomed by the soldiers, who spend less on prostitutes as a consequence, but has deleterious effects on women of the kingdom who have recourse to "dildoes and dogs". Prince Pricket and Princess Swivia commit incest with one another. With the court and country reduced to erotic madness, the court physician counsels: "Fuck women, and let ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Wilmot, 2nd Earl Of Rochester
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 26 July 1680 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II of England, Charles II's Restoration (England), Restoration court, who reacted against the "Authoritarianism and religion, spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era. Rochester embodied this new era, and he became as well known for his rake (character), rakish lifestyle as for his poetry, although the two were often interlinked. He died as a result of a sexually transmitted infection at the age of 33. Rochester was described by his contemporary Andrew Marvell as "the best English satirist", and he is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned among the Restoration wits. His poetry was widely censored during the Victorian era, but enjoyed a revival from the 1920s onwards, with reappraisals from noted literary figures such as Graham Greene and Ezra Pou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Petronius
Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter" Britannica.com. (; ; ; sometimes Titus Petronius Niger) was a Roman Empire, Roman courtier during the reign of Nero (). He is generally believed to be the author of the ''Satyricon'', a satire, satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian era. He is one of the most important characters in Henryk Sienkiewicz' historical novel ''Quo Vadis (novel), Quo Vadis'' (1895). Leo Genn portrays him in Quo Vadis (1951 film), the 1951 film of the same name. Life A reference to Petronius by Sidonius Apollinaris places him, or his ''Satyricon'', in Massalia (ancient Marseille). He might have been born and educated there. Tacitus, Plutarch and Pliny the Elder describe Petronius as the ''elegantiae arbiter'' (also phrased '' ...[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Epicurus
Epicurus (, ; ; 341–270 BC) was an Greek philosophy, ancient Greek philosopher who founded Epicureanism, a highly influential school of philosophy that asserted that philosophy's purpose is to attain as well as to help others attain tranquil lives, characterized by freedom from fear and the absence of pain. Epicurus advocated that people were best able to pursue philosophy by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends; he and his followers were known for eating simple meals and discussing a wide range of philosophical subjects at "the Garden", the school he established in Athens. Epicurus taught that although the gods exist, they have no involvement in human affairs. Like the earlier philosopher Democritus, Epicurus claimed that all occurrences in the natural world are ultimately the result of tiny, invisible particles known as ''Atomism, atoms'' moving and interacting in empty space, though Epicurus also deviated from Democritus by proposing the idea of Clinamen, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charles De Saint-Évremond
Charles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Saint-Évremond (1 April 16139 September 1703) was a French soldier, hedonist, essayist and literary critic. After 1661, he lived in exile, mainly in England, as a consequence of his attack on French policy at the time of the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659). He is buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. He wrote for his friends and did not intend his work to be published, although a few of his pieces were leaked in his lifetime. The first full collection of his works was published in London in 1705, after his death. Life He was born at Saint-Denis-le-Guast, near Coutances, the seat of his family in Normandy. He was a pupil of the Jesuits at the College de Clermont (now Lycée Louis-le-Grand), Paris; then a student at Caen. For a time he studied law in Paris at the College d'Harcourt (now Lycée Saint-Louis). He soon, however, took to arms, and in 1629 went with Marshal Bassompierre to Italy. He served through a great part ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Théophile De Viau
Théophile de Viau (159025 September 1626) was a French Baroque poet and dramatist. Life Born at Clairac, near Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne and raised as a Huguenot, Théophile de Viau participated in the Huguenot rebellions in Guyenne from 1615–16 in the service of the Comte de Candale. After the war, he was pardoned and became a brilliant young poet in the royal court. Théophile came into contact with the epicurus, epicurean ideas of Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini, which questioned the immortality of the soul. (Vanini was accused of heresy and of practising magic, and after having his tongue cut out, was strangled and his corpse burned in Toulouse in 1619.) Because of his heretical views and his libertine lifestyle, de Viau was banished from France in 1619 and travelled in England, though he returned to the court in 1620. In 1622 a collection of licentious poems, ''Le Parnasse satyrique'', was published under his name, although many of the poems were written by others. How ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |