One of the most controversial writers in the history of Western literature, the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) was a French aristocrat and pornographer whose frank depictions of sexual violence have shocked readers for two centuries. His best-known book, The 120 Days of Sodom, inspired the word sadism—meaning to take pleasure by inflicting physical pain on others.
De Sade’s writing—and his own scandalous lifestyle—provoked horrified reactions in France, and at various points in his life he was imprisoned, declared insane, and sentenced to death. Still, he survived until the age of seventy-four and doggedly promoted in plays and books his view that sexual pleasure, unbounded by any sense of morality, was the highest good.
Born into an ancient noble family, de Sade was born in Paris and grew up at his family’s castle in the town of La Coste. He served as an officer in the French army and inherited the castle and his father’s title of marquis in 1767.
Beginning in the late 1760s, de Sade transformed La Coste into his own sexual playpen—and dungeon. He hired both male and female prostitutes for orgies at the castle, some of whom would allege that he held them there against their will. After he poisoned several prostitutes, de Sade was tried and sentenced to death for sodomy, but escaped to Italy. He was eventually caught and sent to prison, but successfully appealed the death sentence.
De Sade spent the next twelve years behind bars, where he wrote his controversial novel 120 Days of Sodom. The book describes the activities of four wealthy libertines who kidnap, abuse, and eventually murder a group of victims. Involving rape, bestiality, and necrophilia, among other topics, the book was not published until the twentieth century and remains a source of enormous controversy.
After the French Revolution, which de Sade supported, he was released from prison and published several pornographic books anonymously. He was returned to jail by Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) in 1801 and spent most of the rest of his life in an insane asylum.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- De Sade was imprisoned at the Bastille in Paris until July 4, 1789—ten days before the storming of the prison that started the French Revolution.
- A movie version of 120 Days of Sodom was filmed by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) in 1975. His version, Saló o le 120 giornate di Sodoma, is one of the most-banned films in movie history and was never released in the United States.
- A play about de Sade’s incarceration at the Bastille, Marat/Sade, by Peter Weiss (1916–1982), premiered on Broadway in 1964 and won a Tony Award the next year. It was made into a movie two years later, with Patrick Magee (1922–1982) playing de Sade. A revival of the play was staged in 2007.
