Laclos

Summary

Dominique Pagani almost always discusses Laclos through Les Liaisons dangereuses, which he counts among the best-written books in the French language12. He treats Laclos as a figure of the libertine, the extreme opposite of virtue3, and libertinage as eros without sentiment4. For him, the work marks an era: the eighteenth century appears in it as the century of libertinage, and it gives literary expression to the height of libertine pleasure5. He links it to Mozart in sessions devoted to music56. He draws a historical argument from it: sexual liberation did not wait for 1968, since it already existed in the eighteenth century78. He also stresses its social setting: the great libertines are great aristocrats, and this libertinage does not take place among the proletariat910. In 2023 he adds that the libertine seeks the obstacle and duration2.

1. 1#3.3 From Ulysses to Daedalus1 Aug 2017 · 7:44
2. 2From the debauchery of sense to the orgy of sentiment29 May 2023 · 1:05:04
3. 3L for Liberty26 Dec 2014 · 7:59
4. 4#4.3 Angélique (by Nerval)11 Dec 2017 · 1:40:54
5. 5#13 Mozart restored2 Feb 2021 · 1:16:02
6. 6Polymorphously perverse Mozart1 Jun 2022 · 0:44
7. 7#3 Harnessed to confinitude4 Apr 2020 · 57:20
8. 8Beware of misreadings! Clouscard and the ideology of desire, in homage to Le Précepteur14 Jan 2023 · 41:15
9. 9#1 Benefits and harms of amnesia…8 Oct 2020 · 47:39
10. 10#8 Happiness and unhappiness in music11 Jan 2021 · 40:28

Summary produced automatically from 16 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.