Throughout history, such people have always been viewed as dangerous - and have, ironically, prompted the most extreme and morally questionable responses. At the turn of the 1811, century, in the wake of the bloody French Revolution, one such dangerous maverick was undoubtedly the Marquis De Sade, the originator of the term sadism. Sade was so scandalous he continues to shock us in the 21st century - and his legacy continues to raise the debate about just what to do with those who gleefully explore the most sinister taboos. No such luck. For almost two centuries, scholars, critics and fellow artists have been rooting about in Sade's grave, in an effort to form a conclusive portrait of the man.
Opinions are wildly divergent.
A few even praise Justine as a work to rival the satire of Jonathan Swift. His writing is attacked as monotonous, his philosophy sophomoric, and his impact on the world of letters merely toxic. Sade's fiction is more extreme than anything we might find in contemporary culture. In Sade's 1795 novel Philosophy of the Boudoir, an elderly dowager is forcibly infected with syphilis. Coprophilia, mutilation, necrophilia and pederasty are staples of Sade's oeuvre.