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Madame de Sade book cover
Madame de Sade
1965
First Published
3.77
Average Rating
108
Number of Pages

In this fascinating all-female drama, Yukio Mishima endeavors to explain the riddle of why the Marquis de Sade's wife, who had remained loyal to her husband throughout the years of his wild debaucheries and during his lengthy imprisonment, decided to sever their relationship once he had regained his freedom. "This play might be described as Sade seen through women's eyes," writes Yukio Mishima in his postface to the drama. "I was obliged to place Madame de Sade at the center and to consolidate the theme by assigning all the other parts to women. Madame de Sade stands for wifely devotion; her moth, Madame de Montreuil, for law, society and morality; Madame de Simiane for religion; Madame de Sans-Fond for carnal desires; Anne, the younger sister of Madame de Sade, for feminine guilelessness and lack of principles...." Through its subtle dialog and finely drawn human contrasts, 'Madame de Sade' is a convincing evocation of period. Although the Marquis himself never appears in the drama, his presence is all pervasive. This English text is by Donald Keene, a foremost translator of modern Japanese writing. The photographs are of scenes in the original Japanese production, staged in Tokyo.

Avg Rating
3.77
Number of Ratings
657
5 STARS
23%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
1%
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Author

Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima
Author · 63 books
Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 and he established himself as a major author with Confessions of a Mask (1949). From then until his death he continued to publish novels, short stories, and plays each year. His crowning achievement, the Sea of Fertility tetralogy—which contains the novels Spring Snow (1969), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970), and The Decay of the Angel (1971)—is considered one of the definitive works of twentieth-century Japanese fiction. In 1970, at the age of forty-five and the day after completing the last novel in the Fertility series, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide)—a spectacular death that attracted worldwide attention.
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