Abstract

A distinctive feature of Sade’s writings is the amount of theatricality involved in libertine activities. Every episode of libertinage is charged with an awareness of performativity on behalf of the characters, and a conscious employment of theatrical vocabulary on the author’s behalf – e.g. the participants are often called actors, the events drama, and so on. At the same time, I have noticed how there are close resemblances in specific contemporary European drama to what constitutes Sadean intersubjectivity. These semblances occur most specifically when the dramatic text is addressing a paradoxical concept, where paradox is defined as that which confronts common opinion or doxa. The intention of this research is, first, to establish what comprises Sadean theatricality, and second, to examine how Sadean intersubjectivity is represented in selected dramatic texts. This objective calls for a comparative approach and a focus on meta-theatricality. I begin with exploring definitions of libertinage before and through Sade, with particular attention paid to performative and theatrical properties of libertinage. Next, I proceed to investigate, in each chapter, one aspect of libertine intersubjectivity in certain dramatic texts. The main challenge in this research is to create a balanced dialogue between two analyses which occur simultaneously. Even so, I have found that studying Sadean intersubjectivity in parallel with contemporary drama facilitates the isolation of those elements within the Sadean text which are required for a paradigm to be formed. Similarly, observing contemporary dramatic texts through a Sadean lens offers a novel way of looking at concepts such as violence, apathy, and a self/other interaction that feeds on the desire for absolute autonomy. A dialectic conversation between the two narratives, I maintain, generates a better understanding of how Sade’s paradoxical ethics is theatrically represented in our time.