French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Saint-Martin, On Medicine in Sade: Dissecting Life, Narrating Death
Other Literary Studies
Review published in Acta Fabula: "Dr. Sade: Towards an Intertextuality of Medicine in the Marquis's Work" by Richard Spavin.
Armelle Saint-Martin, On Medicine in Sade: Dissecting Life, Narrating Death
Paris: Honoré Champion, "Les dix-huitièmes siècles" series, 2010.
Price: 78 EUR
424 pp.
EAN 9782745319579
Publisher's Description:
The Marquis de Sade's La Nouvelle Justine and Histoire de Juliette are structured around two aspects of medicine as it existed in the eighteenth century: the theoretical discourse on questions related to life, and the praxis that confronts illness and death. La Nouvelle Justine revives debates on life, its origin, and its development within the space of philosophical dissertation. Histoire de Juliette stages a practical medicine in which death serves as the driving force of the narrative. Sade chooses to subvert the medical knowledge of his time in order to revitalize philosophical dissertations and transform the narrative of death into a spectacle.
The intersections between literature and medical knowledge during the Enlightenment have long engaged scholars studying the period. Eighteenth-century medical discourse frequently overlapped with philosophical debates concerning the origins of life and the nature of the body, a dynamic that writers of fiction often adapted for their own narrative and ideological ends. Armelle Saint-Martin's study examines how the Marquis de Sade incorporated these contemporary medical concepts into his texts, positioning the discourse of health, illness, and mortality at the center of his major fictional works.
Readers interested in eighteenth-century literature, the history of medicine, and the works of the Marquis de Sade may find this volume relevant to their inquiries. The Marquis de Sade's La Nouvelle Justine and Histoire de Juliette are structured around two aspects of medicine as it existed in the eighteenth century: the theoretical discourse on questions related to life, and the praxis that confronts illness and death.