'Nodier and sadism: the 'monstrous turpitudes' of Smarra' ; 'Nodier et le sadisme : les « monstrueuses turpitudes » de Smarra'

Dir. Émilie Pézard ; International audience ; Nodier studies have scarcely examined the relationship between Nodier and Sade, the first one having apparently done everything to lessen his interest in the sulphurous work of the marquis. However, little is known, Nodier is the inventor, or the propagator of the word “sadism” in the French language, which appeared for the first time in 1834, in the 8th edition of the "Dictionnaire Universel" by Boiste, that, precisely, revised, amended and largely amplified by Nodier. The objective of this article is to shed light on this immorality-stricken relationship between a writer concerned about his reputation and in search of respectability (Nodier was elected to the Académie française in 1833, after two consecutive failures) and the author hated and obscured by the "monstrous turpitudes" formed by his work (the expression is Nodier on the occasion of a portrait of the marquis), which remained underground in the 19th century. The scenes of torture mixed with eroticism in "Smarra or The Demons Of The Night" (1821), of unheard-of violence, are nevertheless likely to explain this fascination of Nodier for the author of Justine, or The Misfortunes Of The Virtue (1791). So true is it that, at the same time, the aesthetic of the nightmare that governs "Smarra", and even of the nightmare in abyss, turns out to be a powerful cover against the surrounding morality. The observation of the reception of "Smarra" in the press of the time is indeed likely to show that what shocks the contemporaries of Nodier, it is not so much the immoral actions of the monster Smarra and his mistress Meroe or the murky nature of their relationship (obeying the laws of a form of sadomasochism, long before Krafft-Ebing and modern psychiatry took hold of these notions), than the appearance of a work whose frenzy clashes with the sensitivity of the supporters of the Classics, faced with the emergence of the Romantics, of which Nodier will be recognized as their spearhead. In other words, the value system ...