Georges Bataille: An Intellectual BiographyTranslated by Krzysztof Filjalkowski and Michael Richardson Winner of the 1987 Prix Goncourt for Biography Georges Bataille (1897–1962), philosopher, writer and founder of the influential literary review Critique, had an enormous impact on the thinking of Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard, and his ideas have been the subjets of recent debates in a wide range of disciplines. In this acclaimed intellectual biography Michel Surya enters into a complicity with Bataille's oeuvre to provide a detailed exposition of its themes as they developed against the backdrop of his life. The essence of Bataille's life and work were defined by transience and effacement, reflecting a will both to contest the impermanence of things and to confront death. His troubled childhood, his relationships with surrealism and his paradoxical position at the heart of twentieth-century French thought are enriched here with testimonies from Bataille's closest acquaintances, making this a vivid and detailed study. Revealing the contexts in which he worked, and the ways in which his work and ideas took shape, Surya sheds essential light on a figure Foucault described as "one of the most important writers of the century." |
Contents
In the beginning was death | 3 |
Turn the world upside down turn the world quite | 14 |
Ave Caesar | 22 |
Hard brow and clear eyes | 31 |
La emoción | 39 |
Letters to an unknown woman | 45 |
When you have to embark on the seas you emigrants | 51 |
Tristi est anima mea usque ad mortem | 57 |
Vivan le femmine viva il buon vino sostegno e gloria | 271 |
Good fortune | 281 |
I love ignorance touching on the future | 289 |
exodus evacuation | 297 |
the divine tatters | 305 |
The community of friends | 311 |
The annunciation made to Marie | 318 |
Philosophys easy virtue | 329 |
Torpid Maurras and decrepit Moscow | 67 |
The mortuary chasm of debauchery | 82 |
I write in order to erase my name | 88 |
The priest of Torcy | 96 |
The eye at work | 107 |
The donkeys kick | 116 |
Excrement philosopher | 126 |
Surrealisms secret affectations | 135 |
A man is what he lacks | 143 |
An obscene and horribly desirable trick | 153 |
Someone able to see clearly | 159 |
The Democratic Communist Circle | 167 |
A world of appearances and of old men with their teeth | 176 |
With a single blow like an ox in the abattoir | 183 |
Minotaure | 191 |
Thunderbolts and forebodings | 205 |
Revolutionary offensive or death | 218 |
The angel and the beast part 2 | 228 |
Everything calls for the death which ravages us | 235 |
Florid bullfight | 254 |
Sacred sociology | 261 |
System is needed and so is excess | 337 |
Philosophy in the old folks home | 344 |
The catechism of fortune | 352 |
A potential for stench and irremediable fury | 357 |
Fascisms last sanctuary | 363 |
salto mortale | 376 |
The empire of the double | 387 |
From Vézelay to Carpentras | 395 |
Communal demands | 403 |
Continuity discontinued | 415 |
for the love of anguish alone | 425 |
The sovereign individual | 437 |
The servitude of utility | 446 |
What lies behind misfortune | 454 |
Universal history | 462 |
To die of laughing and to laugh of dying | 474 |
a Feydeaustyle situation comedy | 482 |
And finally incompletion | 490 |
Afterword | 493 |
Bibliography | 581 |
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Common terms and phrases
accused Acéphale Alexandre Kojève André Breton André Masson anguish appeared Bataille's Blue of Noon Boris Souvarine brothel Caillois called Camus certainly character Chestov Christian claim Colette Peignot College of Sociology Communist Contre-Attaque corpse Critique sociale dead death desire doubt eroticism Euvres complètes everything evil excess existence fact fascination fascism father flesh friends Georges Bataille horror human Ibid idea impossible Inner Experience interview Jean Piel journal justified Klossowski knew La Révolution surréaliste later laughter Laure least less letter lived longer Madame Edwarda madness Marcel Maurice Blanchot meaning Michel Leiris morality never Nietzsche paradox Paris perhaps philosophy Pierre Prévost poetry political possible pseudonym published reason revolution Rheims Sade Sartre seems sense sexual sick silence Simone Simone Weil Souvarine sovereign sovereignty speak Story surrealism surrealists thing thought took torture truth Vézelay violent wanted woman words wrote