La petite mort
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
La petite mort, French for "the little death", is a metaphor for orgasm. The term has generally been interpreted to describe the postorgasmic fainting spells some lovers suffer from. Also it can refer to the spiritual release that comes with orgasm, or a short period of transcendence, an expenditure or spending of life force.
Speculations to its origin include current connotations of the phrase, including to sleep
- Greco-Roman belief that the oversecretion of bodily fluids would "dry out" one of the believed four humours, leading to death
- Islam's reference to sleep
More widely, it can refer to the spiritual release that comes with orgasm, or a short period of melancholy or transcendence, as a result of the expenditure of the "life force". Literary critic Roland Barthes spoke of la petite mort as the chief objective of reading literature. He metaphorically used the concept to describe the feeling one should get when experiencing any great literature.
A recent study of brain activation patterns using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) give some support to the experience of a small death:
- "To some degree, the present results seem to be in accordance with this notion, because female orgasm is associated with decreased blood flow in the orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain that is crucial for behavioural control." (Regional cerebral blood flow changes associated with clitorally induced orgasm in healthy women)
The term 'la petite mort' or 'the small death' does not always apply to sexual experiences. It can also be used when some undesired thing has happened to a person and has affected them so much that 'a part of them dies inside'. A literary example of this is found in Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' when he uses the phrase to describe how Tess feels after she comes across a particularly gruesome omen and meeting with her own rapist.
"She felt the petite mort at this unexpectedly gruesome information, and left the solitary man behind her." ~ Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
'La petite mort' has been referenced in other art forms as well. In 1993 Jake and Dinos Chapman created a piece called Little Death Machine (Castrated). The sculpture is part of an installation at the Tate Britain gallery in London, which explores some of the overtly sexual views of the Surrealist movement. Surrealists such as Salvador Dali explored the links between sex and death through their art.
Contents |
In art
- Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (1647–1652)
- Death of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni (1671–74)—San Francesco a Ripa, Rome.
Popular culture
- Lemony Snicket lists "la petite morte" as an example of a French phrase in The Carnivorous Carnival.
- Goldfrapp have a song called "Little Death" an unreleased song from there debut Felt Mountain.
References
1. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 21, 1952, No. 2. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 34:353
Further reading
- Psychobiology of altered states of consciousness, Psychological Bulletin 2005, Vol. 131, No. 1, 98-127
- Orgasmic aura originates from the right hemisphere, Neurology 2002;58:302-304
See also