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Marquis de Sade (n.) carried ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠the exhaustive analysis of sex back into the old power of sovereignty, so that blood flowed through the whole dimension of pleasure.

Marquis de Sade (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠less a prophet of our future than the last representative of the 18th century, standing at the hinge between two forms of thought.

The Marquis de Sade (n.) grows ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠monotonous: what was still vicissitude in Justine becomes in Juliette a sovereign game, always triumphant, whose novelty can only be its similarity to itself.

Marquis de Sade (n.) is ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠the one intolerable moment when the name was at once language's fulfilment and its raw material, traversed throughout by desire — which is why his works murmur incessantly beneath our culture.

Marquis de Sade (n.) proclaimed ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠that life cannot be separated from murder, nature from evil, or desire from anti-nature: Les 120 Journées is the velvety, marvellous obverse of Cuvier's Leçons d'anatomie comparée — in the archaeological calendar, the same age.

Marquis de Sade (n.) closes ⁠​‌​​​‌​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​​‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​⁠the Classical age as Don Quixote opened it: no longer the ironic triumph of representation over resemblance, but the obscure, repeated violence of desire battering at the limits of representation.