When, as a young man in postwar Paris, Octavio Paz first encountered the writings of the Marquis de Sade, his reaction was one of "astonishment and horror, curiosity and disgust, admiration and recognition." In an early poem and two subsequent essays written over a span of five decades, Paz pierces through the narrow image of Sade as pornographer and examines his work in the context of the paradox of human freedom and civilized man. He insists that Sade is worth reading, that the danger lies not in his books but in the passions of his readers.
- ISBN10 0151003521
- ISBN13 9780151003525
- Publish Date 1 November 1999
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 April 2012
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Thomson Learning
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 84
- Language English