Longtemps tenu pour un écrivain maudit
à l'érotisme sulfureux,
Georges Bataille (1897-1962) reste encore relativement méconnu.
Le centenaire de sa naissance est l'occasion de le découvrir ou de le redécouvrir…

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Cette obsession,
et malgré les lois par lesquelles
l'homme organise sa société,
se manifeste dans la mort & la sexualité,
deux pôles contradictoires avec la vie sociale,
sur lesquels pèsent
tabous & interdits.





Subcultural Relevance

Obviously, Bataille has extreme relevance as a nexus point for the intellectual and artistic life of mid-20th century France. Much of his "achievement" can only be understood inside this historical context. In this way, the simplest method of locating Bataille is to place him dead square in the middle of a continuum between Fascism and Surrealism. And, humorously enough, perhaps this crude position is the only way to make sense of his writing, especially his "transgressive fictions." But while this might be helpful to closet Sadean Catholics and the all too common crypto-fascist French neurotics, it doesn't begin to explain Bataille's increasing valence within the last few decades of this country.

It is Bataille's philosophy of excess and exuberance, his open acknowledgement of shame in the face of the extreme pornographic displays of sex and death, his sense of esoteric humor and history that make him so appropriate to this world we live in. Look around at all the weak-kneed "erotic philosophers" and judge who backs down from the abyssmal truth of the matter. The same goes for the vulturous "death therapists." Here is Bataille's relevance inside the subculture: with one foot in the flesh of the orgy and one in the bones of the grave, he speaks of the dark truths central to all human experience. And, most importantly, he embraces it, says YES to it, even though it would annihilate him. And beyond of all of his failings, this still stands. The corpse of Bataille never smelled sweeter.

http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/georges_bataille.html



Georges Bataille (1897-1962) - pseudonyms: Lord Auch, Pierre Angélique, Louis Trente

French essayist, philosophical theorist, novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potentialities of obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers have all written enthusiastically about his work.

"Blameless, shameless. The more desperate the eroticism, the more hopelessly women show off their heavy breasts, opening their mouths and screaming out, the greater the attraction. In contrast, a promise of light awaits at the limits of the mystical outlook. I find this unbearable and soon returned to insolence and erotic vomit - which doesn't respect anybody or anything. How sweet to enter filthy night and proudly wrap myself in it. The whore I went with was as uncomplicated as a child and she hardly talked. There was another one, who came crashing down from a tabletop - sweet, shy, heartbreakingly tender, as I watched her with drunken, unfeeling eyes." (from Guilty, 1988)

Georges Bataille -- Philosophy Books and Online Resources


Georges Bataille quotes and quotations - BrainyQuote

I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.

Georges Bataille and the Notion of Gift



Histoire de l'oeil (1928, The Story of the Eye), Le Bleu du ciel (1945, Blue of Noon), and L'abbé C (1950, The Abbot C.) are among Bataille's best-known glorifications of eroticism. He felt that sexual union causes a momentary indistinguishability between otherwise distinct objects. The secret of eroticism opened visions into unknowable continuity of being, the death. Poetry has similar dimensions when it dissolves the reader 'into the strange'. Pornography was for Bataille the vehicle for his own surrealist experiments and memory - this also partly explains complex associations of eggs and eyes.

Friedrich Nietzsche's work influenced Bataille deeply, and such figures as Sade and Gilles de Rais. The latter was a 15th-century serial killer whose victims were young children. Bataille's views about social organization were influenced by anthropologist Marcel Mauss' The Gift. In La part maudite (1949) he dealt with the phenomenon of waste in nature and society. Although Bataille could write clearly he was many times content to present his ideas in a puzzling way.

Mediamatic: : Georges Bataille

De erotiek van Georges Bataille - Dutch Only



Georges Bataille 1897-1962

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