The Autonomy of Pleasure is an important work that adds richly to our understanding of libertine literature in eighteenth-century France and, more generally, of the culture of pleasure that emerged in aristocratic and leisurely social circles. James A. Steintrager's interpretation of libertinage is innovatively different from existing scholarship, weaving suggestively and cogently between the eighteenth-century context and the present.
Daniel Brewer, University of Minnesota Steintrager's provocative and insightful book is an original, wide-ranging, well-argued, and substantive contribution to the field that successfully conjoins theoretical debates with current historical and literary scholarship. It is, moreover, engagingly and intelligently written-a pleasure to read.
Lynn Festa, Rutgers University Steintrager's original and persuasive study of the Marquis de Sade and the uses of Sade will be as stimulating to historians of sexuality, sex, and sexology as it will be to scholars and students of eighteenth-century French literature. The Autonomy of Pleasure will also appeal to historians of visual culture with its excellent reproductions of eighteenth-century engravings, surrealist photographs, and movie stills.
Kate Tunstall, University of Oxford Finally, a book that commands the intelligence and the erudition to tackle the thorny topic of libertinage. Steintrager gives its due to the French Enlightenment in the radicalization of pleasure under all its guises. But his book takes us from classical antiquity all the way to the sexual revolution of the sixties. We travel from Ovid to the infamous Marquis de Sade, who makes recurring appearances, to Foucault. A resounding critical exploit on a still intriguing topic and a bold assessment of the pitfalls of the discourse of sexuality.
Pierre Saint-Amand, Brown University