Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously. Born into a noble family dating from the 13th-century, Sade served as an officer in the Seven Years War before a series of sex scandals led to his detention in various prisons and insane asylums for most of his adult life. During his first extended imprisonment from 1777 to 1790, he wrote a series of novels and other works, some of which his wife smuggled out of prison. On his release during the French Revolution, he pursued a literary career and became politically active, first as a constitutional monarchist then as a radical republican. During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned for moderatism and narrowly escaped the guillotine. He was re-arrested in 1801 for his pornographic novels and was eventually incarcerated in the Charenton insane asylum where he died in 1814. His major works include The 120 Days of Sodom, Justine, Juliette and Philosophy in the Bedroom which combine graphic descriptions of sex acts, rape, torture, murder and child abuse with discourses on religion, politics, sexuality and philosophy. The word sadism derives from his fictional characters who take pleasure in inflicting pain on others. Interest in his work increased in the 20th-century, various authors considering him a precursor to Nietzsche, Freud, surrealism, totalitarianism and anarchism. Many prominent Intellectuals including Angela Carter, Simone de Beauvoir and Roland Barthes published studies of his work and numerous biographies have appeared. Cultural depictions of his life and work include the play Marat by Peter Weiss and the film Salò by Pier Paolo Passolini.