SOURCE: "The Rhetoric of Excess and the Excesses of Sadian Rhetoric: From the Cosmic to the Comic," in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, Vol. 265, 1989, pp. 1277-82.

The author of numerous books on French literature, ethics, philosophy, and women's rights, Michael has published several books and articles on the Marquis de Sade. In this excerpt, she suggests that Sade uses irony and comic effects to distance the reader from his text.

Sade never killed anyone, nor was he ever convicted of murder, but it is said that he committed, after his death, the perfect crime, one that perpetuates itself each time one of his readers is shocked or outraged by his writings. Sade published his first book at the age of 51; it is unlikely that he would have become a writer had he not been imprisoned for some thirty years of his life. But in his own...