Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty
.jpeg) Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Gilles Deleuze |
|---|---|
| Original title | Présentation de Sacher-Masoch |
| Translator | Jean McNeil and Aude Willm |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Subject | Leopold von Sacher-Masoch |
| Published |
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| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 293 (Zone Books edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0942299557 |
Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty (French: Présentation de Sacher-Masoch) is a 1967 book by Gilles Deleuze, in which Deleuze philosophically examines the work of the late 19th-century German novelist Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. In this study of the relations between Sadism and Masochism, Deleuze seeks to develop and explain Masoch's "peculiar way of 'desexualizing' love while at the same time sexualizing the entire history of humanity." Deleuze argues that Masochism is something far more subtle and complex than the enjoyment of pain and that Masochism has nothing to do with Sadism.
Reception
Ronald Bogue writes that while Deleuze addresses traditional literary questions in Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty his primary concern is to "delineate the system of thought that informs the corpus" of Sacher-Masoch's works. According to Bogue, "Deleuze tries to revive the reputation of Sacher-Masoch, a celebrated and prolific novelist of the 1870s and 1880s now remembered only as the eponymous exemplar of masochism, by demonstrating that Sacher-Masoch is an astute psychologist and a profound thinker whose works...articulate a perverse idealism aimed at a subversion of the Kantian conception of law." He comments that Deleuze's study of Sacher-Masoch is "highly suggestive from both a psychoanalytic and a critical perspective" but that it is most significant for demonstrating how "writers can reconfigure the relationship between literature and philosophy."[1] Literary critic Camille Paglia expressed a favorable view of Masochism, commenting that she "liked Gilles Deleuze's book on masochism".[2]
References
Further reading
Deleuze, Gilles (1991) Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs Translated from French by Jean McNeil and Aude Willm. New York: Zone Books. ISBN 978-0942299557.
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