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A review by vdarcangelo
Literature and Evil by Georges Bataille
5.0
Favorite Quotes:
"Literature is not innocent. It is guilty and should admit itself so."
"I believe that man is necessarily put up against himself and that he cannot recognise himself and love himself to the end unless he is condemned."
"It is to this purpose that we put the arts: they manage, on the stage, to arouse in us the highest possible degree of anxiety… evoke these derangements, these lacerations, this decline which our entire activity endeavours to avoid."
"Laughter teaches us that when we flee wisely from the elements of death, we merely want to preserve life. When we enter the regions that wisdom tells us to avoid, on the other hand, we really live it."
"But the ritual of witchcraft is the ritual of an oppressed people. The religion of a conquered nation has often become the magic of societies formed as a result of the conquest."
"Humanity pursues two goals--one, the negative, is to preserve life (or to avoid death), and the other, the positive, to increase the intensity of life."
"Even if it wanted to, poetry could not construct: it destroys; it is only true when in revolt."
"That which destroys a being, also releases him: besides, release is always the ruin of a being who has set limitations on his propriety."
"There is a turmoil, a sense of drowning, in sensuality which is similar to the stench of corpses."
"Evil is never surer of being evil than when it is punished."
"To produce a work of literature is to turn one's back on servility as on every conceivable form of diminution."
"Literature is not innocent. It is guilty and should admit itself so."
"I believe that man is necessarily put up against himself and that he cannot recognise himself and love himself to the end unless he is condemned."
"It is to this purpose that we put the arts: they manage, on the stage, to arouse in us the highest possible degree of anxiety… evoke these derangements, these lacerations, this decline which our entire activity endeavours to avoid."
"Laughter teaches us that when we flee wisely from the elements of death, we merely want to preserve life. When we enter the regions that wisdom tells us to avoid, on the other hand, we really live it."
"But the ritual of witchcraft is the ritual of an oppressed people. The religion of a conquered nation has often become the magic of societies formed as a result of the conquest."
"Humanity pursues two goals--one, the negative, is to preserve life (or to avoid death), and the other, the positive, to increase the intensity of life."
"Even if it wanted to, poetry could not construct: it destroys; it is only true when in revolt."
"That which destroys a being, also releases him: besides, release is always the ruin of a being who has set limitations on his propriety."
"There is a turmoil, a sense of drowning, in sensuality which is similar to the stench of corpses."
"Evil is never surer of being evil than when it is punished."
"To produce a work of literature is to turn one's back on servility as on every conceivable form of diminution."