Sade et la réécriture de soi dans « Eugénie de Franval »

Abstract

There was a time in his life when Sade considered the idea of writing his memoires. Although he finally never did so, critics have shown that his novels reflect some parts of his personality or hint at some precise events of his life. This article, which focuses on “Eugénie de Franval,” aims at showing how this short story can be considered as autobiographic to some extent. Indeed, the main characters resemble Sade and his female relatives quite significantly, and the related events strongly echo with the scandalous affair he had with his stepsister Anne-Prospère de Launay and its dramatic outcome. Rewriting his own story, Sade attempts to turn his lost love into a mythical story of incestuous passion, takes pleasure in getting symbolic revenges on those who hurt him in the past, and also tries to achieve a better comprehension of the circumstances leading to his imprisonment.

Keywords

• self rewriting
• writing functions
• life literary recomposing
• Eugénie de Franval
• case of Marseille