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Sade’s Ethics of Emotional Restraint: Aline et Valcour Midway between Sentimentality and Apathy
- Philosophy and Literature
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 40, Number 2, October 2016
- pp. 366-382
- 10.1353/phl.2016.0025
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
Why would Sade, a staunch enemy of the moral didacticism that characterized late eighteenth-century French literature, write the sentimental novel Aline et Valcour, which is ostensibly foreign to the rest of his thought? A philosophical interpretation of this work allows us to bring to light how, in his novel, Sade skillfully reconstructs the conception of sentimentalist emotion—encapsulated in Rousseau’s thought—and counterposes it with a new analysis of passions that is no longer based on empathy but rather on interpersonal domination. Through peculiar physiological and philosophical premises, Sade succeeds in delineating a paradoxical ethics of emotional restraint.