Oh monstre! The treatment of (moral) monstrosity in Sade's Juliette

ZORRILLA, NATALIA LORENA

Oxford

Conferencia; British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Annual Conference; 2017

British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies

Enlightenment thought during the XVIIIth century seems to progressively deprive monstrous bodies of their prodigious character in order to integrate them to the study of nature. Materialist and atheist philosophies, inspired by Titus Lucretius Carus´ poem De rerum natura, tend to conceive nature as the assemblage of existing beings, therefore understanding "monsters" as infrequent combinations of matter. Accordingly, the treatment of the monstrous soul during this period appears to follow a similar path. In An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury claims that an individual that enjoys the spectacle of extreme torments bestowed upon random victims is contra naturam and inhuman. However, this cruel "moral monster", known to be as natural and as necessary as their most pious neighbor by defenders of Radical Enlightenment, becomes increasingly relevant and problematic for those who share this intransigent enlightened sensibility: how is this vile figure formed? And, more importantly, what should be done with it?Although Sade´s problematic relation to Enlightenment is still the topic of an ongoing debate, his publications seem to have acted as devices for the diffusion and the critical reflection on les Lumières. When observing Sade´s reinvention of materialist and atheist concepts pertaining to the movement´s most radical wing, criticism has displayed at least two different perspectives. On one hand, interpreters have focused on Sade´s theoretical amoralisme, expressed in the dissertation of his sadistic characters. On the other, commentators ponder whether Sade´s most piquantes texts in fact favor immoralisme, thus contributing to the spread of a certain libertine "ideology" or transgressive lifestyle. We seek to explore this tension by analyzing the representation and conception of moral monstrosity in L´Histoire de Juliette [1801]. In our presentation, we do not concentrate on fantastic corporealities but rather on the acquired moral monstrosity by which eroticized cruelty and emotional detachment become an individual´s "second nature". From our point of view, Sade gives life to the moral monster, personified by his libertine characters, thus creating a counterfigure to l´homme normal that works as its principe d´intelligibilité. We look to examine those procedures which aim at hindering the reader´s shuddering reaction to the representation of monstrosity within the aforementioned novel, dividing them into two axes: externalization-internalization and neutralization-exaltation. First, we show how Sadean libertines subvert the hegemonic deprecation of the monstrous by ascribing it to the intellectual product of mankind most abhorred by them: the idea of a transcendent divinity (at the same time revealing its anthropomorphic conformation). Secondly, we indicate the strategies used throughout the novel with the objective of positing the indifference or equipollence between the monstrous and the normal.