Erotism (2)

談玉儀 1112/04/18 Teresa Yuh-yi Tan 談玉儀 1

Georges Bataille’s Erotism 二 )Part Two: Some Aspects of Eroticism(Chapter IV-VII)

Teresa Yuh-yi Tan 談玉儀

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Chapter VI The Enigma of Incest

• Levi-Strauss’s Elementary Structures of Relationship– The prohibition of incest

• “is the primary step thanks to which, through which, and especially in which, the transition from Nature to Culture is made” (30).

Levi-Strauss’s Elementary Structures of Relationship

– The prohibition of incest• “is the primary step thanks to

which, through which, and especially in which, the transition from Nature to Culture is made” (Erotism 30).

• Lévi-Strauss in 2005

• Lévi-Strauss in 2005 (from wikipedia)談玉儀 Teresa Yuh-yi Tan 談玉儀 3

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• The incest taboo– Levi-Strauss proposed that the initial

motivation for the exchange of women was the incest taboo, which he deemed to be the beginning and essence of culture, as it was the first rule to check natural impulses;

– and secondarily the sexual division of labour

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• Levi-Strauss’s Elementary Structures of Relationship

– Incestuous relationships as a universal obsession as dreams and myths show

– Degeneracy of the children of an incestuous union

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• McLennan and Spencer – Exogamous practices as a custom

sanctifying the habits of war-like tribes who normally obtained their wives by capture. (Erotism 199)

• Durkheim’s sociological theory– The absence of a taboo on marriage

with men of anther tribe (Erotism 200)

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• Freud’s psychoanalytical hypothesis– “ the brothers, jealous of each other,

maintain the taboos on relations with their mother or sisters that their father imposed in order to keep them for his own use.” (

• Lévi-Strauss said, “. . . the desire for the mother or the sister, the murder of the father. . . “(Erotism 200)

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• Freud’s psychoanalytical hypothesis– “ the brothers, jealous of each other,

maintain the taboos on relations with their mother or sisters that their father imposed in order to keep them for his own use.” (

• Lévi-Strauss said, “. . . the desire for the mother or the sister, the murder of the father. . . “(Erotism 200)

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• Distribution of women– exogamy therefore promotes inter-

group alliances and serves to form structures of social networks

– To acquire a wife was to acquire wealth, and her value was sacred

– The arbitrariness of the marriage of cross and parallel cousins

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• Distribution of women (Erotism 204-205)

– Mauss has attempted to consider that barter is less a matter of commercial transactions than one of reciprocal gift and a total social act

– Generosity is the keynote– A ceremonial character– A commercial benefit

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• “The production of luxury objects whose real significance is the honour of those possessing, receiving or bestowing them is in any case destructive of useful work (it is the opposite of capitalism which accumulates the profits of work and uses them to create further profits). When certain objects are destined for ceremonial exchanges they are withdrawn from productive use.” (Erotism 205-206)

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• Potlatch– “calculation in the highest degree

and at the same time calculated interests are loftily ignored.” (Erotism 211)

– “But it is rather a pity that Levi-Strauss has paid so little attention to the bearing of eroticism on the potlatch of women.” (Erotism 211)

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• Marriage is a gift – “This gift is perhaps a substitute fro

the sexual act; for the exuberance of giving has a significance akin to that of the act itself: it is also a spending of resources. But the renunciation based on taboo that allows this kind of expenditure is the one thing that makes such giving possible.” (Erotism 218)

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Chapter VI The Enigma of Incest:

conclusion • Eroticism

– “this pattern of reciprocity is of the essence of eroticism.” (Erotism 212)

– “the factor underlying the rules of exchange bound up with the taboo on incest.” (Erotism 212)

– Yet eroticism has to be dissociated from the material side of marriage. .” (Erotism 212)

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Chapter VI The Enigma of Incest:

conclusion • Eroticism

– “Without the counterbalance of the respect for forbidden objects of value there would be no eroticism.” (Erotism 218)

• Respect keeps order • Respect reveals the violent

side of the taboo of incest—transgression of the law

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Chapter V Mysticisms and Sensuality

– St. Theresa’s transverberation• Mysticism is akin to a neurotic state

of exaltation (Erotism 226)– Father Tesson’s 2 forces (Erotism 227)

• Sexual force written to our nature

• Mysticism comes from Christ

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– Life within death • The extreme case of the sexual act

bringing about the animal’s death (Erotism 232)

• Father Tesson’s formula: “to live the divine life, a man must die.” (Erotism 233)

• A drone ‘s fatal impulse that dives him through the light towards the queen.

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• Degradation of the self tied to order and the Church

– “self that he renounces his primary egotism. The second self desires to lose itself in God, but when temptation assails him God is no longer felt in his mind.” (Erotism 237)

• Morose delectation– “In morose delectation the beauty of the object

and its sexual attraction have vanished. Only the memory of them persists in the form of the halo of death.” (Erotism 237)

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• Saint Theresa– “I die because I cannot

die.” (Erotism 240) – To live more violently that

she could say she was on the threshold of dying”

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Chapter VI Sanctity, Eroticism and

Solitude• “In the very first place

eroticism differs from animal sexuality in that human sexuality is limited by taboos and the domain of eroticism is that of the transgression of these taboo.” (Erotism 256)

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Solitude• Erotism and Solitude

– Erotism is the solitary fault, the thing which saves us only by separating us from everybody else, the thing that saves us only in the euphoria of an illusion, since when all is said and done that which in eroticism bears us to pinnacles of intensity also lays the curse of solitude upon us at the same time. (Erotism 262)

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Solitude• Eroticism and Silence

– “Eroticism is silence, I have said; it is solitude. But not for people whose very presence in the world is a pure denial of silence, a chattering, a neglect of potential solitude.” (Erotism 264)

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Chapter VII A Preface to “Madame

Edwarda”• De Sade’s point

– “death is diverted to the other partner and that partner is at first a delicious expression of life. The sphere of eroticism is inescapably destined to deceit. The object provoking the reaction of Eros gives itself out to be other than it is.” (Erotism 270)

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Conclusion• Eroticism

– is the problematic part of ourselves; (Erotism 273)

– the most mysterious, the most general and least straightforward; (Erotism 273)

– the greatest personal problem of all; (Erotism 273)

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Conclusion• Eroticism

– is the problematic part of ourselves; (Erotism 273)

– the most mysterious, the most general and least straightforward; (Erotism 273)

– the greatest personal problem of all; (Erotism 273)

– the supreme moment, a silent one, and in the silence our consciousness fails us. (Erotism 276)

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Erotism (2)