Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, more commonly known as the marquis de Sade, was born in Paris in 1740. He spent much of his adult life in prison for acts of debauchery and for his writings, although he did actively participate in the French Revolution. He died in 1814 at the Charenton asylum outside Paris, where he had been held for over a decade. Sade's reputation has developed considerably since his death; known primarily during his lifetime and the nineteenth century as the author of obscene pornography, he was a case study for sexologists like Kraft-Ebing, who coined the term “sadism”. Sade was championed in the early twentieth century by Apollinaire and by the Surrealists, for whom he represented a liberated explorer of …

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Citation: Wynn, Thomas. "Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 November 2006 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3901, accessed 21 November 2024.]