Clandestinité : secret et sédition, dissimulation et subversion de l’ordre ; donc : échelle de valeurs illicite. Écart vis-à-vis des normes intellectuelles et morales incarné par le libertin à l’âge classique. Or au XVIIIe siècle, il n’est plus, comme au XVIIe, un poète licencieux ou un penseur austère, mais un personnage de roman ; prospérant aussi bien dans les œuvres licites que les romans clandestins. Mais qu’est-ce qu’un roman libertin ? On peut déceler dans la variété d’esthétiques et de conceptions de ces œuvres la permanence d’un motif : la clandestinité. Deux romanciers de la fin du siècle ont fait du secret l’un des thèmes fondamentaux de leurs œuvres : Laclos dans Les Liaisons dangereuses et Sade, notamment dans l’Histoire de Juliette. Et léguèrent ainsi à la littérature des modèles exemplaires du libertinage romanesque. En quoi leurs réinterprétations radicales du « genre libertin » éclairent-elles la spécificité de ce dernier, révélant le sens qu’y recouvre le thème récurrent de la clandestinité ? Il s’agit d’étudier chez ces eux un intertexte libertin qui réactive comme donnée essentielle le thème de la clandestinité ; afin de saisir, dans le sens qu’ils confèrent à l’association clandestinité et libertinage, les significations et le projet romanesque qu’ils poursuivirent. Ainsi, le libertinage tardif de leurs œuvres dévoilera, on peut le penser, la spécificité d’un imaginaire romanesque propre au XVIIIe, et qui meurt avec lui. / Clandestinity: a word that associates secret and sedition; and threrefore implies the subversion of the common values established by a society legal frame. As this step aside from normal values, it had been embodied at the Classical Age by the libertines. However, at the XVIIIth century, the libertine isn’t anymore the philosopher or the satirical and licencious poet he had been in the XVIIth century : by this time, he becomes a novel character. But what is exactly a libertin novel, at the XVIIIth century ? Two writters of the time provided answers of a very different kind: Laclos in Les Liaisons dangereuses and Sade in a novel like Histoire de Juliette. Consisting in an interpretation of the “libertinage romanesque”, their novels essentialy dwel on one very matter: clandestinity. How such a theme could provide fundamental clues to the undestanding of the significations that both authors have given to the libertinage of the XVIIIth century ? A question that implies that the study of their books should focus on the libertine intertextual schemes that nourish their imaginaire. Which means questionning the sense they’ve given to this association: clandestinity and libertinage.

Libertines Real and Fictional in Rochester, Shadwell, Wycherley, and Boswell examines the Restoration and eighteenth-century libertine figure as it appears in John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester's Satyr against Mankind, "The Maim'd Debauchee," and "Upon His Drinking a Bowl," Thomas Shadwell's The Libertine, William Wycherley's The Country Wife, and James Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763. I argue that the limitations and self-contradictions of standard definitions of libertinism and the ways in which libertine protagonists and libertinism in general function as critiques of libertinism. Moreover, libertine protagonists and poetic personae reinterpret libertinism to accommodate their personal agendas and in doing so, satirize the idea of libertinism itself and identify the problematization of "libertinism" as a category of gender and social identity. That is, these libertines misinterpret-often deliberately-Hobbes to justify their opposition and refusal to obey social institutions-e.g., eventually marrying and engaging in a monogamous relationship with one's wife-as well as their endorsement of obedience to nature or sense, which can include embracing a libertine lifestyle in which one engages in sexual encounters with multiple partners, refuses marriage, and questions the existence of God or at least distrusts any sort of organized religion. Since any attempts to define the word "libertinism"-or at least any attempts to provide a standard definition of the word-are tenuous at best, it is equally tenuous to suggest that any libertines conform to conventional or standard libertinism. In fact, the literary and "real life" libertines in this study not only fail to conform to such definitions of libertinism, but also reinterpret libertinism. While all these libertines do possess similar characteristics-namely affluence, insatiable sexual appetites, and a rebellion against institutional authorities (the Church, reason, government, family, and marriage)-they often misinterpret libertinism, reason, and Hobbesian philosophy. Furthermore, they all choose different, unique ways to oppose patriarchal, social authorities. These aberrant ways of rebelling against social institutions and their redefinitions of libertinism, I argue, make them self-satirists and self-conscious critics of libertinism as a concept.

Submitted by Onia Arantes Albuquerque (onia.ufg@gmail.com) on 2018-10-19T14:52:41Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Ana Carolina Rosa Batista - 2018.pdf: 1857546 bytes, checksum: a1a52fcaa0a05575ed2905954319f7c6 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2018-10-22T11:27:17Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Ana Carolina Rosa Batista - 2018.pdf: 1857546 bytes, checksum: a1a52fcaa0a05575ed2905954319f7c6 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-22T11:27:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Ana Carolina Rosa Batista - 2018.pdf: 1857546 bytes, checksum: a1a52fcaa0a05575ed2905954319f7c6 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Donatien-Alphonse François, the Marquis of Sade is one of the great names of the French libertine literature of the eighteenth century. He was a compulsive writer, being his bibliography characterized between diverse literary genres like novels, short stories, tales, and even theatrical plays. His texts were symptomatic, reflecting the problems and criticisms of his time. Sade criticized the absolutist political model in crisis of the French of the eighteenth century. The interference of religious morality and the Catholic Institution in this period, as well as criticism of a declining aristocracy. All this backed up by a philosophical thought, its philosophy of the nature, of materialistic influence. Sade links philosophical discourses with sexual practices in his texts, where everything is allowed and the imagination knows no bounds. And here, it Will be to the good marquis, this unique spirit, whether in his time or in the history of western thought, that we will look for in the present reflection, taking his work as object – about everything: the novel The 120 Days of Sodom – in order to understand how this author makes use of a destructive aesthetics, protected in the philosophy of nature, to propose a dechristianized social practice. To achieve this objective, contextual discussion of the eighteenth- century France Will be necessary, from Christian religious morality to materialistic philosophy. We Will also talk about the life and work of the marquis, as well as a study of the concept of literature, characterization of the novel, and the language of the grotesque, which is so used by Sade. Finally, we shall come to the analysis of the concept of aesthetics, and to think how Sade Will make of this aesthetic a destructive system, proposing a new social practice, exempt from a religious morality. / Donatien-Alphonse François, o Marquês de Sade é um dos grandes nomes da literatura libertina do século XVIII francês. Foi um escritor compulsivo, sendo sua bibliografia caracterizada entre diversos gêneros literários como romances, contos, novelas, e até mesmo peças teatrais. Seus textos foram sintomáticos, refletindo os problemas e as críticas de seu tempo. Sade criticou o modelo político absolutista em crise do século XVIII francês. A interferência da moral religiosa e da Instituição Católica nesse período, além da crítica a uma aristocracia decadente. Tudo isso respaldado por um pensamento filosófico, sua filosofia da natureza, de influência materialista. Os textos de Sade intercalam discursos filosóficos com práticas sexuais, onde tudo é permitido e a imaginação desconhece limites. E será justamente ao bom marquês, este espírito ímpar, seja em seu próprio tempo, seja na história do pensamento, que pretendemos aqui revisitar e tomar por objeto – tendo por enfoque principal o romance Os 120 dias de Sodoma – para assim, compreendermos como este autor faz uso de uma estética destrutiva, resguardada na filosofia da natureza, para propor uma prática social descristianizada. Para alcançarmos tal objetivo discussões contextuais da França do século XVIII serão necessárias, desde a moral religiosa cristã, até a filosofia materialista. Falaremos também da vida e obra do marquês, além de um estudo do conceito de literatura, caracterização do romance, e a linguagem do grotesco, sendo esta tão utilizada por Sade. Para for fim, chegarmos à análise do conceito de estética, e pensarmos como Sade fará dessa estética um sistema destrutivo, propondo uma nova prática social, isenta de uma moral religiosa.

The thesis focused in details on libertine literary movement in 17th and 18th century and subsequently its influence in later centuries. The first part deals with the general meaning of libertine literary movement, the second part contains information about the development of libertine literary movement in the 17th century with authors Cyrano de Bergerac and Theophile de Viau. The third part concerns the development process of libertine literary movement in the 18th century, specifically through the six authors: Crébillon younger, Louvet de Couvray, Restif de la Bretonne, Boyer D'Argens, Vivan Denon and Choderlos de Laclos and four specific libertine works: Therese philosopher, No tomorrow, About education of women and Dangerous Liaisons. The fourth section contains selected authors, for which it is possible to find the impact of libertine movements on their work or lifestyle. Key words: libertine, libertine movement of 17th century, libertine movement of 18th century, Cyrano de Bergerac, Théophile de Viau, Crébillon son, Louvet de Couvray, Restif de la Bretonne, Boyer D'Argens, Vivant Denon, Choderlos de Laclos, Therese philosopher, No Tomorrow, Dangerous liaisons

Ce mémoire porte sur la relation de l'œuvre de Sade à la modernité. De Sade qui, en ce qu'il ne s'est pas laissé aveugler, qu’il a su voir l'obscurité immanente aux Lumières, doit être considéré comme un voyant. Ce que d'aucuns appellent sa folie, c'est-à-dire la raison naturelle, bourgeoise par lui chantée et exacerbée, c'est un miroir tourné dans notre direction, un miroir dans lequel nos sociétés refusent de voir leur propre raison instrumentalisée, leur propre raison mise au service de l'égoïsme, de l'autoconservation. Face à ce refus, l'œuvre de Sade apparaît comme le refoulé de notre modernité. Dans un premier temps, ce mémoire examine la filiation esthétique de Sade à Baudelaire et s'attache, par l'entremise d'une étude comparative des figures du libertin et du dandy, à démontrer comment l'esthétique négative de Baudelaire présuppose la conception sadienne du mal comme intimement lié à la nature et à la raison, comment elle la transfigure de sorte que c'est seulement à partir de cette conscience dans le mal que Baudelaire en arrive à penser le bien, qu'elle constitue pour lui la seule possibilité de se réformer, de devenir à la fois humain et lucide. Il faut toujours en revenir à de Sade pour expliquer le mal, écrit Baudelaire, qui fait ainsi de Sade ou du moins de son fantôme, puisque celui-ci n'est que rarement nommé, une figure clé de la conscience dans le Mal, condition sine qua non de la modernité baudelairienne. Dans un second temps, c'est à la notion de petite souveraineté que s'intéresse ce mémoire. Souveraineté par procuration qui interdit la réelle souveraineté, elle est le produit de l'assujettissement du libertin à la nature, à la Raison, cette Raison naturelle et bourgeoise. Et l'éducation naturelle par laquelle le libertin cherche à assujettir l'Autre, lui qui ne peut posséder qu'en soumettant autrui au système auquel lui-même s'est consciemment soumis, lui le possédé-possédant, le fantôme d'homme faiseur de fantômes lui-même, est reproduction à son compte de son propre assujettissement. Cette notion de petite souveraineté s'oppose à une tradition de critiques idéalistes, qui, se méprenant sur la parenté du dandy et du libertin, héroïsant ce dernier, voient en lui un sujet libre, souverain, sans se rendre compte que sa Raison est historiquement lourde de conséquences. / This essay examines the relation of de Sade's works with modernity. De Sade is a visionary: he wasn't blinded by the Enlightment, in which he saw an inherent darkness. What some perceived as his madness — the natural reason, the bourgeois reason which he celebrates and exacerbates — is a mirror of our own, a mirror in which our societies refuse to see themselves and their own utilitarian reason, guided by opportunism and self-conservation. This refusal shows de Sade's works as a part of our modernity which we seek to suppress — de Sade as le refoulé de notre modernité. First, this essay looks at the esthetic filiation from de Sade to Baudelaire and, by comparing de Sade's libertine and Baudelaire's dandy, shows how the negative esthetic of Baudelaire presupposes de Sade's conception of Evil as a product of nature and reason, and how it transfigures this conception in such a way that Good can only proceed of this awareness in Evil, through which lies the only possibility to become at once human and lucid. One must always go back to de Sade to understand Evil, writes Baudelaire, who thus highlights de Sade's — or rather a ghost of de Sade, as his name is seldom mentioned in Baudelaire's — key role in this concept of conscience dans le Mal, making him the sine qua non condition of his modernity. The second part of this essay analyzes the notion of petite souveraineté. This borrowed sovereignty, which forbids the real sovereignty, is the product of the libertine's subjection to nature and to Reason, i.e. to the bourgeois and natural Reason. The natural education by which the libertine — he who can only possess by submitting the other to the system to which he consciously submitted himself, the possessed yearning to possess, the man reduced to a ghost who create ghosts himself — wants to dominate the Other(s) is a reproduction for himself of his own subjection. This notion of petite souveraineté confronts a tradition of idealistic critics who see in the libertine the subject of a total liberty, a sovereign subject – and thus who don't notice that the historical meaning of his Reason is laden with consequences.

Estuda-se aqui a escrita do marquês de Sade, sobretudo as três versões de sua personagem virtuosa: Os infortúnios da virtude [Les infortunes de la vertu] (1787), Justine ou as infelicidades da virtude [Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu] (1791) e A Nova Justine ou as infelicidades da virtude [La Nouvelle Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu] (1799). Nelas, investiga-se o modo pelo qual a escrita produz equívocos, campos de ressonância e compossibilidades entre os pares conceituais com os quais trabalha (a saber, virtude/vício; infelicidade/prosperidade; etc). A dramatização dos conceitos e das normas simbólicas que os orientam configura, assim, uma cenografia equívoca, cujo funcionamento consiste em sabotar a univocidade de sentido dos termos que aciona. Essa equivocidade constitutiva da escrita sadiana deixa então em suspenso o próprio posicionamento enunciativo, não se subsumindo à particularização das intenções do Autor e, tampouco a uma determinação unívoca do contexto. Propõe-se, entretanto, singularizar sua indeterminação, ou melhor, a sobredeterminação das torções perspectivas que efetua e os seus equívocos, bem como os reenvios que fabrica e encena em uma rede de enunciações. Para tanto, dramatizam-se aqui dois eixos de análise, nos quais a virtude se faz fundamental: a discussão setecentista sobre a função moralizadora das artes e a política jacobina de Robespierre. Na passagem de uma a outra, é a equivocidade enunciativa de Sade que entrelaça a performatividade do texto literário e a instituição da lei. / This thesis aims to study the writing of Marquis de Sade, especially the three versions of his virtuous character: Les infortunes de la vertu (1787), Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu (1791) and La Nouvelle Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu (1799). In them, the object of inquiry is the way that writing produces equivoques, fields of resonance and compossibilities between conceptual pairs in which it works upon (namely, virtue/vice; infelicity/prosperity, etc). The dramatization of the concepts and symbolic norms that guide them sets an equivocal cenography, whose operation consists in sabotage the univocity of the terms\' meanings that it triggers. This constitutive equivocity of the sadian writing leaves suspended the whole enunciative positioning, not subsuming itself to the particularizations of the author\'s intentions, neither to a univocal determination of the context. However, it is proposed to singularize its indetermination, or better put, the overdetermination of the perspective torsions that it performs and its equivoques, as well as the resends that it fabricates and stages in a network of enunciations. Therefore, this thesis dramatizes two axes of analysis, in which the virtue is fundamental: the discussion in the Eighteenth century about the moralizing function of the arts and Robespierre\'s jacobin politics. In the passage from one to another, it is Sade\'s enunciative equivocity that tangles the literary texts\'s performativity and the institution of the law.

Ce mémoire porte sur la relation de l'œuvre de Sade à la modernité. De Sade qui, en ce qu'il ne s'est pas laissé aveugler, qu’il a su voir l'obscurité immanente aux Lumières, doit être considéré comme un voyant. Ce que d'aucuns appellent sa folie, c'est-à-dire la raison naturelle, bourgeoise par lui chantée et exacerbée, c'est un miroir tourné dans notre direction, un miroir dans lequel nos sociétés refusent de voir leur propre raison instrumentalisée, leur propre raison mise au service de l'égoïsme, de l'autoconservation. Face à ce refus, l'œuvre de Sade apparaît comme le refoulé de notre modernité. Dans un premier temps, ce mémoire examine la filiation esthétique de Sade à Baudelaire et s'attache, par l'entremise d'une étude comparative des figures du libertin et du dandy, à démontrer comment l'esthétique négative de Baudelaire présuppose la conception sadienne du mal comme intimement lié à la nature et à la raison, comment elle la transfigure de sorte que c'est seulement à partir de cette conscience dans le mal que Baudelaire en arrive à penser le bien, qu'elle constitue pour lui la seule possibilité de se réformer, de devenir à la fois humain et lucide. Il faut toujours en revenir à de Sade pour expliquer le mal, écrit Baudelaire, qui fait ainsi de Sade ou du moins de son fantôme, puisque celui-ci n'est que rarement nommé, une figure clé de la conscience dans le Mal, condition sine qua non de la modernité baudelairienne. Dans un second temps, c'est à la notion de petite souveraineté que s'intéresse ce mémoire. Souveraineté par procuration qui interdit la réelle souveraineté, elle est le produit de l'assujettissement du libertin à la nature, à la Raison, cette Raison naturelle et bourgeoise. Et l'éducation naturelle par laquelle le libertin cherche à assujettir l'Autre, lui qui ne peut posséder qu'en soumettant autrui au système auquel lui-même s'est consciemment soumis, lui le possédé-possédant, le fantôme d'homme faiseur de fantômes lui-même, est reproduction à son compte de son propre assujettissement. Cette notion de petite souveraineté s'oppose à une tradition de critiques idéalistes, qui, se méprenant sur la parenté du dandy et du libertin, héroïsant ce dernier, voient en lui un sujet libre, souverain, sans se rendre compte que sa Raison est historiquement lourde de conséquences. / This essay examines the relation of de Sade's works with modernity. De Sade is a visionary: he wasn't blinded by the Enlightment, in which he saw an inherent darkness. What some perceived as his madness — the natural reason, the bourgeois reason which he celebrates and exacerbates — is a mirror of our own, a mirror in which our societies refuse to see themselves and their own utilitarian reason, guided by opportunism and self-conservation. This refusal shows de Sade's works as a part of our modernity which we seek to suppress — de Sade as le refoulé de notre modernité. First, this essay looks at the esthetic filiation from de Sade to Baudelaire and, by comparing de Sade's libertine and Baudelaire's dandy, shows how the negative esthetic of Baudelaire presupposes de Sade's conception of Evil as a product of nature and reason, and how it transfigures this conception in such a way that Good can only proceed of this awareness in Evil, through which lies the only possibility to become at once human and lucid. One must always go back to de Sade to understand Evil, writes Baudelaire, who thus highlights de Sade's — or rather a ghost of de Sade, as his name is seldom mentioned in Baudelaire's — key role in this concept of conscience dans le Mal, making him the sine qua non condition of his modernity. The second part of this essay analyzes the notion of petite souveraineté. This borrowed sovereignty, which forbids the real sovereignty, is the product of the libertine's subjection to nature and to Reason, i.e. to the bourgeois and natural Reason. The natural education by which the libertine — he who can only possess by submitting the other to the system to which he consciously submitted himself, the possessed yearning to possess, the man reduced to a ghost who create ghosts himself — wants to dominate the Other(s) is a reproduction for himself of his own subjection. This notion of petite souveraineté confronts a tradition of idealistic critics who see in the libertine the subject of a total liberty, a sovereign subject – and thus who don't notice that the historical meaning of his Reason is laden with consequences.

Notre recherche porte sur la représentation du monde chinois dans la production romanesque du Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). Il s’agira d’une part de rendre compte des écrits historiques sur la Chine depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’au siècle des Lumières ; il conviendra d’autre part de s’interroger sur la portée systématique et polémique que ces textes revêtent. La littérature de voyage (celle des voyageurs, des jésuites et des compilateurs) offre de ce point de vue un champ particulièrement fécond et une matière extrêmement riche : susceptible de soumettre le lointain à d’objectifs divers, dont l’évangélisation et la défense sont les aspects les plus prégnants. Basée sur cette documentation, notre recherche entend plus généralement cerner l’intervention des philosophes dans les débats intellectuels qui ont dominé depuis les Grandes Découvertes : le sauvage, la barbarie, la superstition, etc. Tout cela contribue à la formation et à l’imagination de Sade. Le Divin Marquis transforme les éléments qu’il prélève dans cet ensemble de textes en une utopie sadienne où les vices des Chinois deviennent les vertus des libertins et où le relativisme des mœurs devient l’universalisme de la cruauté. En se référant au pays de l’Extrême-Orient, les libertins mettent l’accent sur le despotisme paternel (l’infanticide gratuit), conjugal (la domination absolue) et politique (l’autorité tyrannique). / Our research focuses on the representation of the Chinese world in the novels of the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). On the one hand, it reviews historical writings on China from antiquity to the Enlightenment; on the other hand, it analyzes the systematic and polemic scope of these texts. From this point of view, travel literature (that of travelers, Jesuits and compilers) is particularly rich and fertile, because it subordinates the distant world to various objectives, among which evangelization and defense are the most prominent. Based on this documentation, our research intends more generally to investigate the intervention of philosophers in the intellectual debates that have dominated since the Great Discoveries: the savage, barbarism, superstition, etc. They all contribute to Sade’s training and imagination. The Divine Marquis transforms various elements of these debates into a Sadeian utopia in which the vices of the Chinese become the virtues of the libertines and where the relativism of manners becomes the universalism of cruelty. In reference to the country of the Far East, the libertines emphasize paternal, conjugal and political despotism, respectively epitomized as gratuitous infanticide, absolute domination, and tyrannical authority.

Estuda-se aqui a escrita do marquês de Sade, sobretudo as três versões de sua personagem virtuosa: Os infortúnios da virtude [Les infortunes de la vertu] (1787), Justine ou as infelicidades da virtude [Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu] (1791) e A Nova Justine ou as infelicidades da virtude [La Nouvelle Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu] (1799). Nelas, investiga-se o modo pelo qual a escrita produz equívocos, campos de ressonância e compossibilidades entre os pares conceituais com os quais trabalha (a saber, virtude/vício; infelicidade/prosperidade; etc). A dramatização dos conceitos e das normas simbólicas que os orientam configura, assim, uma cenografia equívoca, cujo funcionamento consiste em sabotar a univocidade de sentido dos termos que aciona. Essa equivocidade constitutiva da escrita sadiana deixa então em suspenso o próprio posicionamento enunciativo, não se subsumindo à particularização das intenções do Autor e, tampouco a uma determinação unívoca do contexto. Propõe-se, entretanto, singularizar sua indeterminação, ou melhor, a sobredeterminação das torções perspectivas que efetua e os seus equívocos, bem como os reenvios que fabrica e encena em uma rede de enunciações. Para tanto, dramatizam-se aqui dois eixos de análise, nos quais a virtude se faz fundamental: a discussão setecentista sobre a função moralizadora das artes e a política jacobina de Robespierre. Na passagem de uma a outra, é a equivocidade enunciativa de Sade que entrelaça a performatividade do texto literário e a instituição da lei. / This thesis aims to study the writing of Marquis de Sade, especially the three versions of his virtuous character: Les infortunes de la vertu (1787), Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu (1791) and La Nouvelle Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu (1799). In them, the object of inquiry is the way that writing produces equivoques, fields of resonance and compossibilities between conceptual pairs in which it works upon (namely, virtue/vice; infelicity/prosperity, etc). The dramatization of the concepts and symbolic norms that guide them sets an equivocal cenography, whose operation consists in sabotage the univocity of the terms\' meanings that it triggers. This constitutive equivocity of the sadian writing leaves suspended the whole enunciative positioning, not subsuming itself to the particularizations of the author\'s intentions, neither to a univocal determination of the context. However, it is proposed to singularize its indetermination, or better put, the overdetermination of the perspective torsions that it performs and its equivoques, as well as the resends that it fabricates and stages in a network of enunciations. Therefore, this thesis dramatizes two axes of analysis, in which the virtue is fundamental: the discussion in the Eighteenth century about the moralizing function of the arts and Robespierre\'s jacobin politics. In the passage from one to another, it is Sade\'s enunciative equivocity that tangles the literary texts\'s performativity and the institution of the law.

This thesis considers the burlesque literary forms in the work of the seventeenth-century writer, Cyrano de Bergerac. It challenges current scholarship by looking beyond libertinism to consider the importance of Cyrano's comic writing practices. While it does not deny the philosophical and scientific focus of Cyrano's oeuvre, it suggests that the burlesque is a defining characteristic. By taking into account the literary context in which Cyrano was writing – notably the querelle des Lettres and the rise of the histoire comique – as well as looking at other comic writers that could have influenced Cyrano, and through close textual readings, this thesis reveals that burlesque forms are often used in excess in Cyrano's work – forms compete against forms – producing destructive effects; burlesque forms can, in effect, be self-defeating. This project then asks whether it is possible to consider Cyrano a comic writer at all. It does demonstrate, however, that, in ridiculing everyone and everything, Cyrano too makes a mockery of the very idea of a dissimulative text. In questioning the literary gesture that Cyrano makes through his battling burlesque forms, this thesis suggests that libertinism can appear to be one of many playful masks the author assumes in his work. Is Cyrano a burlesque libertine? If so, this thesis raises the wider question of whether there are other imposters within the ranks.