Literature and Evil
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"It seems to me that if literature moves away from evil, it quickly becomes boring."--Georges Bataille "Few men have staked everything as candidly as Michelet on a few simple ideas. He believed the progress of Truth and Justice, and a return to the laws of Nature, to be inevitable. In this sense his work is a magnificent act of faith. But though he never really perceived the limitations of reason, he occasionally (I dwell on the paradox) came to the assistance of those very passions which opposed it. I do not know how he came to write a book like La Sorcière – by chance, no doubt: his decision was apparently due to certain files, hitherto unused and compiled over the years, which he was determined to edit. In any case, La Sorcière makes its author appear as one of the men who have spoken most humanely about Evil."--Literature and Evil (1957) by Georges Bataille "Our tragedies, our comedies are the extension of ancient sacrifices." French: "Nos tragédies , nos comédies sont les prolongements des anciens sacrifices." --Literature and Evil (1957) by Georges Bataille |
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La littérature et le mal (1957) is a book by Georges Bataille.
"Literature is not innocent," Bataille declares in the preface to this collection of literary profiles. "It is guilty and should admit itself so." The word, the flesh, and the devil are explored by Bataille in the work of eight outstanding authors: Emily Bronte, Charles Baudelaire, William Blake, Jules Michelet, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Jean Genet and Marquis de Sade.
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