Aesthetics of the mimetic revolution: politics and literatura in La Philosophie dans le boudoir and Aline et Valcour, by Sade

Abstract

This paper will study hermeneutically two literary texts of the Marquis de Sade published in 1795, La philosophie dans le boudoir and Aline et Valcour ou le Roman philosophique, with the objective of showing that Sade’s literary texts exceed and exacerbate the ongoing political revolution by proposing an aesthetic revolution from a deep transgression ou outrage of the principles of the classical mimetic order that emerges from a spontaneous philosophical thought given in the literary writing of the late century eighteenth century. The exposition of this aesthetic criticism that we see in Sade's literature allows us to sustain that the aesthetic revolution in the face of the classical representative Regime was already being cultivated before the literary creation of Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert and Victor Hugo, as suggested by Auerbach and Rancière. Here we will propose that this aesthetic revolution occurs, then, with Sade and his peculiar mixture of styles that outrages the classical mimetic order, configures a hypermorality resulting from the transgression of principles and, consequently, is constituted as the openness to modern literary experience.