Sade, Fourier, Loyola

by Roland Barthes

Não foi por gosto pela provocação que se pensou em reunir, num mesmo livro, Sade, Fourier e Inácio de Loyola, o escritor maldito, o filósofo utopista e o santo jesuíta. É porque os três foram classificadores, fundadores de línguas - a língua do prazer erótico, a língua da felicidade social, a língua da interpelação divina. Cada um deles pôs, na construção dessa segunda língua, toda a energia de uma paixão. O objetivo deste livro não é voltar às propostas de conteúdo com que são habitualmente creditados os três autores, isto é, uma filosofia do Mal, um Socialismo utópico, uma mística da obediência, mas considerar Sade, Fourier e Loyola como formuladores, inventores de escritura, operadores de texto.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, France, Theory, Language, 20th Century

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Roland Barthes of France applied semiology, the study of signs and symbols, to literary and social criticism.

Ideas of Roland Gérard Barthes, a theorist, philosopher, and linguist, explored a diverse range of fields. He influenced the development of schools of theory, including design, anthropology, and poststructuralism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_...

Reviews

[Kevin Karpiak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea why nobody reads barthes anymore in anthropology. He's prettier than Foucault, less obtuse than Levi-Strauss and more current than Benjamin.

S/F/L should be a must-read for anyone claiming to understand the first thing about "The Order of Things"

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine writing in service of the explication of exemplary texts is found in "Sade Fourier Loyola" by esteemed French literary critic Roland Barthes. For, in addition to the aforementioned analysis (and what acute analysis it is!), one, in reading this brief text, gains access to the writing of a master stylist (as translated more than capably by Richard Miller) who utilizes his estimable skills in the task of finding similarities among three authors who could not be more dissimilar in their content. However, Barthes has bigger fish to fry than mere content, for he, in alignment with his structuralist credentials, is seeking discover the forms of argument/structure among Sade, Fourier, and Loyola. Moreover, while one is generously given this 'structuralist' argument, one is also given firm and complete (almost) understanding of the content of each of these 'off-center' thinkers. Thus one learns of the nature of the debasement found in Sade's many works; one also is acquainted with Loyola's spiritual regimen, which shares features of both Sade and Fourier's systems; one finally also learns of the thought of Fourier, that unique precursor of socialist thought whose imaginative system entertains and instructs in equal measures. While reading this delightful and instructive tome one gains insight into the theory of structuralism and how it manifests itself among three disparate thinkers. This feat is worth more than the price of admission, in this humble reader's dispassionate opinion.

[Geoff Wyss]

I feel strange rating this one, since I only understood about half of it.

[Diletta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Antropologia (o pornografia?) del linguaggio.

[Francisco Barrios · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro sobre tres fundadores de distintos lenguajes: el del placer erótico, el del bienestar social y el de la interpelación divina; vistos desde la perspectiva de inventores de signos y operadores del Texto.

En el caso de Sade (dos bloques del libro se consagran a él), el Texto no es una filosofía del Mal, sino una búsqueda total de un orden (social, cultural, arquitectónico y económico) que imita y subvierte el orden circundante. Para el Marqués, la escritura es un proceso creador en el que se impone la combinatoria y la enumeración de signos nuevos: proceso (gramatical y sintáctico) cuya finalidad radica en la presentación de nuevos límites a los establecidos mediante la subversión misma de la semántica.

En el caso de Fourier asistimos a la creación del lenguaje del socialismo utópico: aquí se crean los signos propios del bienestar social mediante el cambio del orden establecido. Sin embargo, a diferencia de lo que ocurre con Sade, para Fourier el placer no es el fin último de la redistribución (o rediseño) de los lazos sexuales entre hombres y mujeres al interior de una sociedad que los vuelve comunales, es una felicidad o bonanza duradera que trasciende la esfera de la individualidad misma. Es curioso que, como Barthes mismo acota, Fourier no diga más sobre este punto, toda vez que leyó al propio Sade.

El caso de Ignacio de Loyola y sus "Ejercicios espirituales" es tal vez el más intrigante y oscuro de todos. En esta obra, Loyola prepara al ejecutante (en un retiro espiritual) durante cuatro semanas para que desarrolle un lenguaje (durante la tres primeras semanas) con el que no solo presente a su Dios acciones y pensamientos, frutos de una reflexión profunda, que tengan por origen y justificación a Cristo; sino que esté preparado para que, durante la última semana, pueda interpretar la respuesta divina a su ejercicio, a sabiendas de que el silencio inapelable también puede ser una respuesta: aquella de la mística de la obediencia.

[Mattschratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes books and songs get mushed together for me for reasons that begin as sheer accident, and then they do not stay that way. I drove around Buffalo one night listening to "Pot Kettle Black" and then read big chunks of If on a winter's night a traveler at a Denny's, and now the hopeful wistfulness of those two things seem relevant to each other. While I was reading S/L/F I listened to "Fun Fun Fun" by the Beach Boys over and over. You could make a connection, I think, between Barthes's Sade's combinatorial, transgressive fun fun fun, both in their early attempts to apply cars and surfing to every pleasurable human activity (and, in a less fun fun fun way, the stuff you can learn about on Dennis Wilson's wikipedia page). But a minute and fifty seconds into "Fun Fun Fun," when they hit the "whoo...oo0, ooo, ooo, oo-ooh" parts: pure Fourier, the c0-maniac's combinatorial utopia. Things could, Sade and Fourier and the Beach Boys let us know, be arranged differently, and that is a heartening thing to know.

I would like to apologize to St. Ignatius of Loyola for not figuring out something he has to do with "Fun Fun Fun."

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It begins with one chapter on Sade and one on Loyola, both of which are rather systematic interrogations of the languages/worlds created by each. When it moves into the chapter on Fourier (and then a second on Sade), the writing turns to the more ecstatic and fragmented analysis I love about Barthes' work.

[Wendy smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

there were a lot of phenomenological overlaps that i enjoyed in barthes' examination of these three writers

[Alexander Shelemin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sade parts are interesting, Fourier and esp. Loyola not so much (some credit for this goes to mister De Sade himself, of course).