ROUSSEAU, SADE AND CASANOVA: strategies of pure sensibilité and artful libertinage

Abstract

The article is an analysis of the narrative strategies of J.-J. Rousseau, D.F.A. Sade and G. Casanova regarding the conceptions of love and desire, related to the “truths of heart” and “illusionist excess”. From the idea of a rural autonomy in La Nouvelle Heloise by Rousseau – with its moralizing contraposition in relation to the artifices of the rural surroundings – such as sumptuous parties as love’s proof (or desire), in La double épreuve, by Sade, what is evaluated is the ethos of sensibility versus the libertine. The first one establishes the modern subjective positiveness; the second one fights against it in the name of the modern notion in constitution of desire and seduction. In Histoire de ma vie, Casanova proposes an alternative route, with the conception neither moralizing nor cerebral of the loving erotic encounter. It indicates a type of pleasure in the multiplicity of the moment, with no urge to domination. We point out to some consequences of these oppositions in the constitution of modern subjectivity.