The Pornographic Imagination
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| '''''The Pornographic Imagination''''' (1967) is a [[nobrow]] essay by [[Susan Sontag]] first published in the [[Partisan Review]] of spring. It was collected in ''[[Styles of Radical Will]]''. | '''''The Pornographic Imagination''''' (1967) is a [[nobrow]] essay by [[Susan Sontag]] first published in the [[Partisan Review]] of spring. It was collected in ''[[Styles of Radical Will]]''. | ||
| - | The subject is [[erotic literature]] and Sontag contends that five [[French literature|French literary works]] are not 'just' [[pornography]] but [[literary fiction]] and thus genuine literature. Although the term [[paraliterature]] had not been coined at the time of its writing (we have to wait 17 years for [[Fredric Jameson]] to do that), the connection between [[science fiction]] and [[erotic fiction]] makes this [[essay]] one of the first defenses of the [[nobrow]] or [[paraliterary]] category. | + | The subject is [[erotic literature]] and Sontag contends that five [[French literature|French literary works]] are not 'just' [[pornography]] but [[literary fiction]] and thus genuine literature. |
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| + | :"Not only do Pierre Louys' "Trois Filles de leur Mere," George Bataille's "Histoire de l'Oeil" and "Madame Edwarda," the pseudonymous "Story of O" and "The Image" belong to literature, but it can be made clear why these books, all five of them, occupy a much higher rank as literature than "Candy" or Oscar Wilde's "Teleny" or the Earl of Rochester's "Sodom" or Appolinaire's "The Debauched Hospodar" or Cleland's "Fanny Hill."" | ||
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| + | Although the term [[paraliterature]] had not been coined at the time of its writing (we have to wait 17 years for [[Fredric Jameson]] to do that), the connection between [[science fiction]] and [[erotic fiction]] makes this [[essay]] one of the first defenses of the [[nobrow]] or [[paraliterary]] category. | ||
| Her 'case' is based on these five novels: | Her 'case' is based on these five novels: | ||
Revision as of 11:57, 16 April 2014
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"Human sexuality is, quite apart from Christian repressions, a highly questionable phenomenon, and belongs, at least potentially, among the extreme rather than the ordinary experiences of humanity. Tamed as it may be, sexuality remains one of the demonic forces in human consciousness - pushing us at intervals close to taboo and dangerous desires, which range from the impulse to commit sudden arbitrary violence upon another person to the voluptuous yearning for the extinction of one's consciousness, for death itself." --Susan Sontag in the "The Pornographic Imagination" |
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The Pornographic Imagination (1967) is a nobrow essay by Susan Sontag first published in the Partisan Review of spring. It was collected in Styles of Radical Will.
The subject is erotic literature and Sontag contends that five French literary works are not 'just' pornography but literary fiction and thus genuine literature.
- "Not only do Pierre Louys' "Trois Filles de leur Mere," George Bataille's "Histoire de l'Oeil" and "Madame Edwarda," the pseudonymous "Story of O" and "The Image" belong to literature, but it can be made clear why these books, all five of them, occupy a much higher rank as literature than "Candy" or Oscar Wilde's "Teleny" or the Earl of Rochester's "Sodom" or Appolinaire's "The Debauched Hospodar" or Cleland's "Fanny Hill.""
Although the term paraliterature had not been coined at the time of its writing (we have to wait 17 years for Fredric Jameson to do that), the connection between science fiction and erotic fiction makes this essay one of the first defenses of the nobrow or paraliterary category.
Her 'case' is based on these five novels:
- Trois filles de leur mère (1926) - Pierre Louÿs
- Histoire de l'oeil (1928) - Georges Bataille
- Madame Edwarda (1937) - Georges Bataille
- L'Histoire d'O (1954) - Pauline Réage
- L'Image (1956) - Catherine Robbe-Grillet
Bataille understood more clearly than any other writer
- One reason that Histoire de l'oeil and Madame Edwarda make such a strong and unsettling impression is that Bataille understood more clearly than any other writer I know of that what pornography is really about, ultimately, isn't sex but death. I am not suggesting that every pornographic work speaks, either overtly or covertly, of death. Only works dealing with that specific and sharpest inflection of the themes of lust, "the obscene," do. It's toward the gratifications of death, succeeding and surpassing those of eros, that every truly obscene quest tends. -- p. 60, Picador USA
