Eroticizing Aesthetics

Bringing together Bataille with Lacan and Nietzsche, Tim Themi examines the role of aesthetics implicit in each and how this invokes an erotic process celebrating the real of what is usually excluded from articulation. Bataille came to deem eroticism as the standpoint from which to grasp humanity as a whole, based on his understanding of our transition to humanity being founded on a series of taboos placed on inner animality. An erotic outlet for the latter was historically the aesthetic dimensions of our religions, but Bataille's view of how this was gradually diminished has much in keeping with Nietzsche's critique of Christian-Platonic dualism and Lacan's of the desexualised Good of Western metaphysics. Building from these often surprising proximities, Themi closely examines Bataille's many interventions into the history of aesthetics - from his confrontations with Breton's surrealism to his own novels and encounter with the animal cave paintings of Lascaux - radically re-illuminating the corollary phenomena of Dionysos in Nietzsche's philosophy and the "jouissance [enjoyment] of transgression" in the psychoanalysis of Lacan. A new ethical criterion for aesthetic works and creations on this basis becomes possible.

AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsINTRODUCTION 1BATAILLE, NIETZSCHE, LACAN, AND THE REAL OF EROTICS1.1Palaeolithic Transition from Animal to Human 1.2 Death of Tragedy from Socrates' Incompetence1.3Taboo on Transgression from Yahweh's Ignorance1.4Capitalism's Curious Service of Goods2 METAPHORISING THE SPLIT GAZE OF BATAILLE'S STORY OF EYE2.1 Surface Formalism: Metonymic Crosscuts of Metaphoric Chains2.2 Depth Contents: The Violence of the Eye's Transgression2.3 Sade's Sovereign Man: The Rape of Priest's Eye by the Gaze 3 BATAILLE, NIETZSCHE, LACAN AND THE REAL OF AESTHETICS3.1 Dissident Surrealism: Bataille's Documents Critique of Aesthetics3.2 Lascaux Caves: Divine Animality as the Originary Real of Aesthetics3.3 The Accursed Sovereignty of Art, and Nietzsche4 NIETZSCHE'S AFFIRMING PSYCHOANALYSIS IN FREUD, SURREALIST MODERNSIM, BATAILLE, AND LACAN4.1 Germanophone Context: Nietzsche and Freud 4.2 Francophone Context: Bataille, Surrealism, Modernism, Lacan4.3 Dionysian Context: Presence of Myth in Absence5 FROM DIONYSOS TO DEVIL: BATAILLE'S EVIL HAPPINESS OF LITERATURE5.1 Literature's Quest for Happiness of the Erotic 5.2 Literature as Condescension of Desire to Evil5.3 Poetry's Force of Sovereignty from the Rut of Literature5.4Art and Politics: Separate Connection of the Imaginary and Symbolic in the Real6 ETERNAL RETURNS: EROTIC POLITICS IN BATAILLE'S BLUE OF NOON6.1 Superficial Socialism-The Case of Lazare 6.2 Superficial Surrealism-The Case of Xenie6.3 Libidinal Demand for Death-The Return of Dirty Doro-thea6.4Split-Subjects of Political Economy-Left, Right, Left . . .CONCLUSION Bibliography Index