De Sade’s quantitative moral universe: Of irony, rhetoric, and boredom 9783111712338, 9789027932945

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DE PROPRIETATIBUS LITTERARUM edenda curat C.H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana University

Series Practica 95

DE SADE'S QUANTITATIVE MORAL UNIVERSE Of Irony9 Rhetoric, and Boredom by

Roberta J. Hackel

1976

MOUTON THE HAGUE - PARIS

© Copyright 1976 Mouton & Co. B.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

ISBN 90 279 3294 8

Printed in the Netherlands

To Richard L. Frautschi, my deepest gratitude

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.

Introduction

1

2.

Methodology The Vocabulary Lists Sender-Receiver Combinations Virtue/Vice Role Distribution

4 7 7 7

3.

The Tables Faxelange Eugénie de Franval Porge ville La Comtesse de Sancerre

9 9 15 31 36

4.

The Composite Vocabulary List

43

5.

The Type-Token Ratios Methodology The Ratios f o r the Five Tales The Five Tales: A Synopsis Minimum-Maximum Ratios Recurring Patterns and Random Elements

50 50 51 65 66 68

6.

The Significance of The Norms and Their Deviations

71

7.

The Verbal Data: Miss Henrietta Stralson

78

The Six Stories: A Summary

88

8.

The Moral Concepts: Grammatical Discrimination

91

9.

The Moral Concepts: Speech Patterns

93

10. The Ironical Dimension of The Moral Concepts

97

Bibliography

100

Index

101

1. INTRODUCTION

Prevailing interpretations of Sade have viewed him as an analyzer of psychopathic sexuality, as religion's amoral if not anti-moral antagonist, and as a man whose jailbird existence caused him to spew forth literary flagellations and fantasies. His supporters have rallied to his defense with a passion rarely found in critical works. They often, however, summarily dismiss, pointedly ignore or excuse Sade's seemingly boring repetitions - the overworked clichés, the repetitive epithets, and the almost uniform monolithic character portrayals. In their justifiable desire to defend or explain Sade's moral philosophy, to have him accepted as a serious thinker if not a great literary figure, they have a tendency to overlook his humour and irony. Yet Sade did choose to write works of fiction, not solely a handbook on sex or a discourse on ethics, and it is to his use of language and stylistic techniques that we must turn in order to understand not only how he conveys his moral philosophy but also to what extent we should take Sade seriously. For Sade to convince the reader that it is ridiculous to remain morality's playtoy, that the acceptance of vice and its concomitant destruction is within the natural order of things, and that crime and vice are a desirable life style, he must f r e e the reader from associating too closely with virtue. This he does through the use of constantly repeated vocabulary elements and through the use of certain stylistic techniques which contrapuntally expose the merits of vice and virtue as seen by the narrator. The vocabulary contains, among many other elements, numerous emotive words such as "le scélérat" and "la malheureuse". Certain words are so constantly repeated that they become clichés which would at first seem to tire the reader. These repeated and often melodramatic clichés, however, will not permit the reader to identify with virtue, for he quickly grows weary of hearing how unhappy and how persecuted virtue is. The sympathy he would normally feel for virtue's victim is lessened through Sade's use of overstatement. It is, therefore, the very great quantity and repetitive quality of the moral t e r m s used which detracts from the expected indignation or sympathy that the t e r m s should evoke. At the same time the overworked terminology leaves the reader's mind f r e e to enjoy the criminal pleasures in which the Sadean villain indulges. The constant repetition of the words associated with vice and

2

virtue often reach the level of parody. By their very repetition the words can become meaningless. The reader is left with the impression that the word often does no more than occupy verbal space. On the one hand, it is the accumulation of moral terminology which dismisses the very meaning of the words themselves. On the other hand, as Roland Barthes says, speaking of the Sadean criminal, "On dira â la limite que le crime sadien n'existe qu'à proportion de la quantité de langage qui s'y investit, non point du tout parce qu'il est rêvé ou raconté.. „ " (1) It is also then the veiy quantity of the language that Sade pours into each story that structures the criminal acts, and not the reverse. This quantitative use of moral and social terminology needs to be examined. As Sadean acts are structured through a repetitive moral vocabulary, the question of the use of language, its purpose and its import, remains foremost to be studied. Not only is virtue's effectiveness destroyed through repetition, but the very virtuousness of virtue itself is constantly being questioned, for there is no single Sadean virtuous heroine who does not - either willingly or unwittingly - commit a crime. Among the heroines of Les Crimes de l'amour, for instance, Madame de Franval, in a moment of passion, attempts to kill her daughter. The virtuous Mademoiselle de Faxelange is forced by her husband to commit murder upon murder. Florville is guilty, among other items, of incest and fratricide, and Miss Henriette Stralson kills her fiancé's murderer. Not only does virtue assume the role of vice, but vice will often assume the role of virtue. The vicious Franlo in Faxelange treats his wife with respect. The debauched Granwell in Miss Henriette Stralson has several outbursts of generosity. Through this exchange of roles and the metamorphosis of virtue-as-vice and vice-as-virtue, Sade's work becomes readily explainable in terms of categories, or different types of actions. Barthes, writing on this subject, says the following: Dans la scène toutes les fonctions peuvent s'échanger, tout le monde peut et doit être agent et patient, fustigateur et fustigé; cette règle est capitale, d'abord parce qu'elle assimile l'érotique sadienne à une langue vraiment formelle, dans laquelle il n'y a que des classes d'action et non des groupes d'individus, ce qui simplifie beaucoup la grammaire. ( 2 ) Because of abstract incarnation and repetitive, almost mechanistic descriptions, Sade's work cannot be fruitfully explained in terms of individuals or individual groups. By the vice/virtue role exchange, the abstract stereotype portrayals and the vast quantity of moral vocabulary often used a s expletives, Sade's work, as Barthes points out, gives proof of an "irréalisme concerté". The events described in a Sadean work, Barthes goes on to say, are "fabuleux", for they can never actually happen. By the very fact, however, that these events cannot be realized, that they are given as impossible from

3

the beginning, the reader's attention is drawn away from the impossibilities of the events or persons in question and towards the possibilities of discourse. (3 ) It is because Sade's thought is founded upon certain categories that a study of Sade's language and its moral components becomes a useful tool in understanding the narrative fabric. NOTES (1) ter, (2) (3)

Roland Barthes, "L'Arbre du crime", Tel Quel, XXVIII (Win1969), 34-35. Barthes, 36. Barthes, 37.

2. METHODOLOGY

In studying the verbal elements in Sade' s moral universe, their vocabulary patterns and grammatical usage, an arbitrary limit of six out of the eleven stories that constitute Les Crimes de l'amour was imposed. This limit was set in order to keep the study down to manageable proportions. The stories, Florville et Courval, Faxelange, Dorgeville, La Comtesse de Sancerre, Eugénie de Franval and Miss Henriette Stralson, total four hundred and nineteen pages in the Jean-Jacques Pauvert edition. ( 1 ) Lists were drawn up of all words pertaining to vice and virtue, the number of times the words occurred and the page number. The sender and receiver, that is the person who speaks and about whom something is spoken, were also noted. Based on my judgment, four categories have been artificially, but hopefully, judicially established for all of Sade's moral vocabulary: 'persecuted virtue', 'active virtue', 'active vice' and 'judgmental vice'. All words which express approval or pity, or words which relate to a positive social value, such as candor or charity, are associated with virtue; those words expressing disapproval, condemnation, horror and violence relate to vice. Any word relating to moral or physical persecution went into the first category. Words such as accabler, persecuté, and sacrifice reflect a passive, a f flicted state, that of the victim. Jean Brochier, in Le Marquis de Sade et la conquête de l'unique says about the language of the victim: H n'y a pas de langage de la victime, elle ne s'exprime pas, fût-ce par un c r i . . . La victime ne parle pas parce qu'elle n'est pas, parce qu'elle a abdiqué cette conscience-de-soi qui est l'apanage du libertin. Seul le bourreau, qui fait sans arrêt la preuve de lui-même, peut parler. Le langage de la victime n'est qu'un langage subi, celui d'une c h o s e . . . parce que sa signification lui est apportée de l'extérieur par le bourreau et qu'elle a accepté cette tutelle et cette abdication. ( 2 ) The vocabulary of persecuted virtue generates a condition of stasis. It is a language which is imposed from without and is born of no internal necessity. The active virtue classification contains many types of socially acceptable behavior. The victim is charitable, friendly, honest.

5

Active vice includes all words pertaining to crimes, e. g., voler, tuer, and conspirer, as well as words which refer to human faults and failings: "erreurs", "torts". The lists dealing with judgmental vice include all epithets which express moral disapproval of the vicious protagonist ( le monstre ), as well as all words used to describe his character and tastes (luxe, stoique, orgueil ). The judgmental vice category contains words which can only be partially explained through the crimes the villains commit. In calling someone a monstre or a scélérat we obviously mean that he is wicked. We cannot, however, through these terms define his wickedness, as we can with a work like assassin. The active vice terms, however, are readily explainable, either through legal definition or specific human failings. This indefinite aspect of judgmental vice is linked to the undefinable quantity of violence these words express. Within this category Sade will use words which contain two and sometimes three levels of meaning and will exploit all the possible significances. One meaning of a word might carry an implicit expression of violence. A Sadean villain, for instance, might have beaucoup de raffinement. He is cultured and urbane, yet at the same time the reader understands that he is refined in his cruelty. Another not uncommon word in Sade is stoique. Historically the word is associated with equanimity, i. e., a certain equal-mindedness in the face of all events. The word can also imply a certain indifference, as well as a lack of sensitivity and a hardness, all of which can be associated with violence. Thus some words within this category may carry positive and negative connotations, depending upon whether the reader wishes to adopt the narrator's point of view or that of the vicious protagonist. The ambivalence of the terms seems to be one of Sade's designs for rendering vice more fascinating. Having established the categories and the vocabulary lists for several of the stories, the next step was to see what kind( s) of patterns emerged, i. e., are there any recurring patterns within and between the four categories? Vocabulary patterns for the first five stories were worked out, holding the sixth story, Miss Henriette Stralson, in reserve as a check against the hypotheses established for the first five works. The emerging patterns for this last story will be discussed separately at the end of the section dealing with vocabulary patterns. To ascertain if there are any recurring patterns, the vocabulary lists have been divided into tokens and types, tokens being, of course, the total number of occurrences of a word and types being the discrete word types in each category. The first page of tables in each story gives in two separate lists the number and types of words relating to vice and virtue in the four categories. Next, an alphabetical list has been composed in order to see which words occur in each work and which ones are repeated, and then, to see which words appear with the most frequency, a second vocabulary list of word types in descending order of frequency has been added.

6

The sender/receiver combinations permit us to see how the n a r rator and the characters identify themselves in moral terms. In noting down the sender and receiver of each word, I noticed that not only did virtue label itself a s virtue and vice label itself a s vice, which was to be expected, but it appeared as though virtue might be describing itself in the vice terminology and vice describing itself as virtue. Role reversals, it seems, may be occurring not only in the plot movement, but in the descriptions of the characters themselves. To discover if this might be true and, if so, if it was mainly the narrator who was labeling virtue as vice and vice as virtue, or if the vicious and/or virtuous protagonists were responsible for the exchange of roles, the total number of occurrences for every sender and receiver of vice and virtue was noted under each category. With this breakdown it became easy to see exactly how each character labeled himself in the work and how the narrator labeled him. These particular tables revealed that the narrator, in accordance with his overtly expressed moral stance, would usually, although not always, describe the vicious protagonists with the expected vice terminology and the virtue protagonists in virtuous terms. The characters, on the other hand, would often assimilate the vocabulary of their r e s pective antagonist. The amount of vicious terms applied to the vicious protagonist varies with each story, but the phenomenon is a recurrent one. A composite vocabulary list from each story of all words pertaining to vice and virtue was then drawn up. This was done in order to see the total variety of word types voider each category and to facilitate seeing what ideological/moral categories the words represented. The results are discussed in Chapter Four. The next step was to establish norms, to see in what proportions vice and virtue appeared within each work, the recurring elements ( or lack of them ) that might exist and their implications. A convenient method for establishing the various patterns was to convert the numbers of all types and tokens into ratios. These calculations have all been placed in Chapter Five. All ratios, with the exception of the individual token and type categories to the total vocabulary, were done on a ten point scale. The type ratio figures are higher than the token figures since there are more tokens, hence a lower (meaning more frequent) figure. In Eugénie de Franval, for instance, the number of active and judgmental vice tokens total 702, or . 1 whereas the number of active and judgmental vice types totals 179, or . 6. The recurring patterns discovered and the ensuing discussion of them show to what extent Sade's approach to fiction is consciously mechanistic and rigorous. Does Sade apply the same methods of composition, the same vocabulaiy, and the same types of description to each story that he writes? Does he set the limits before he begins and then proceed to work out his 'formulae' ? By studying Sade from the quantitative point of view these formulae may become more readily accessible. Having determined the recurring frequencies of the moral vocabulary, the next step was to illustrate its behavior within the text itself. Grammatical usage and stylistic techniques were studied in

7

order to understand the effect on a functional level of Sade's moral universe, to discover the various levels of significance of Sade's moral vocabulary and to what types of purposes he uses them. THE VOCABULARY LISTS The two sets of vocabulary lists in the following tables, one alphabetical and the other in descending order of occurrences, illustrate the variety and repetition of all the moral vocabulary. For the most part Sade's Vocabulary remains the language of traditional morality. The lists show that different types of words are frequently repeated. There are few variations on Sade's main themes. But what is perhaps most interesting to note is the type and amount of vocabulary in each story. By the nature of the repetitions and a self-imposed moral boundary, Sade's vocabulary is a limiting one, but within the confines of that with which he is dealing, there is a surprising amount of variety. SENDER-RECEIVER COMBINATIONS The sender/receiver combinations are listed by using the initials for each character, whose designated role is also noted on the second page for each set of arrays. The combinations are first listed separately under each category in order to see how each character r e f e r s to himself and others. The total combinations a r e then given. From these total combinations are derived the number of receivers and senders of all virtue and all vice. These last figures have been placed under the section entitled "The Token-Type Ratios" and will be discussed later in relations to the transfer of character roles. The listing of the sender and receiver combinations for the vice/virtue terminology enables us to see exactly in what moral t e r m s each character thinks of himself, as well as showing what types and variety of words he uses when referring to himself and to others. When the number of vice and virtue senders and receivers who have active roles within the works are counted, we can see that Sade has a tendency to balance the number of major character types within each story. If, for instance, there is one main sender of virtue, there is usually one main sender of vice. The following list illustrates Sade's propensity for balancing the number of vice and virtue senders and receivers. THE VIRTUE/VICE ROLE DISTRIBUTION Porge ville: two major senders of vice (Cécile, Saint Surin) one major sender of virtue ( Dorgeville ) two major receivers of vice ( Cécile, Saint Surin) one major receiver of virtue ( Dorgeville )

8

Eugénie de Franval:

two major senders of virtue ( Madame de Franval, Clervil ) two major senders of vice ( Eugénie, Franval) two major receivers of virtue ( Madame de Franval, Clervil) two major receivers of vice ( Franval, Eugénie )

Florville et Courval:

one main sender of virtue ( Florville ), and many minor ones of vice. Many r e ceivers of virtue and many of vice. There is, however, an equal number of principal receivers of both vice and virtue.

Faxelange:

two major senders of virtue ( Mademoiselle de Faxelange, Goé ) one major sender of vice ( Franlo ) two major receivers of virtue (Mademoiselle de Faxelange, Goé ) one major receiver of vice ( Franlo )

La Comtesse de Sancerra: two major senders of virtue (Amélie, Monvel ) one major receiver of vice ( La Comtesse ) two major receivers of virtue ( Amélie, Monvel ) one major receiver of vice ( La Comtesse )

NOTES ( 1 ) The exact dates of composition are uncertain. Sade's original plan was to have twenty-four stories appearing in six volumes, alternating serious stories with more humorous ones. The collection finally appeared in 1800. All quotations from this collection will be in-text references, taken from the Jean-Jacques Pauvert edition: Paris, 1967, Vols. I, E, m . ( 2 ) Jean Brochier, Le Marquis de Sade et la conquête de l'unique ( P a r i s : Le Terrain Vague, 1962), 182. For a further discussion of the victim as object/symbol see Octavio Paz, "Corriente Alterna", Sur (February, 1962), 35-46 and Maurice Blanchot, Lautréamont et Sade ( P a r i s : Les Editions de Minuit, 1963).

3. THE TABLES FAXELANGE In Faxelange, a 10, 000 word stoiy, there are 347 words relating to vice and virtue. Each of the four token categories have a roughly equal number of occurrences, i. e . , persecuted virtue having 83 tokens, active virtue 96, active vice 82 and judgmental vice 86. The type categories, on the other hand, have a higher proportion of vice to virtue. When we compare each token to its counterpart type category, we find that, moving from persecuted virtue through judgmental vice, the repetition of types of words tends to decrease whereas the variety of words tends to increase. Faxelange, for instance, has roughly four times the number of persecuted virtue tokens to types (21 to 83), but only twice the number of judgmental vice tokens to types. The four token categories show a roughly equal, i. e . , stable distribution of numbers of words, an equal apportioning of vice and virtue words. The sender/receiver tables illustrate how each character is viewed by others, by himself, and by the narrator. On pages 10-11, for instance, the villain Franlo speaks of himself ( E F - F ) in persecuted virtue terms four times and in active virtue t e r m s four times. On page 11 we see that he refers to himself in judgmental vice terms only twice, but is referred to by the narrator in these terms 11 times. Franlo thinks of himself as being virtuous more often than he does Mademoiselle de Faxelange. The narrator, however, r e f e r s to Mademoiselle de Faxelange's active virtue and persecution 78 times, and to Franlo's virtue and persecution 11 times. From these tables we can begin to see how each character assimilates the vocabulary and the role of his antagonist. TABLE 1: Faxelange Total Vocabulary: 10, 000 Tokens 347 words relating to vice and virtue: 179 words relating to virtue 168 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue

-

83 occurrences 96 occurrence 179 total

10

active vice judgmental vice

- 82 occurrences - 86 occurrences 168 total

Types 141 types of words relating to vice and virtue: 61 words relating to virtue 80 words relating to vice persecuted virtue - 21 occurrences active virtue - 40 occurrences 61 total active vice judgmental vice

- 34 occurrences - 4(3 occurrences 80 total

Symbols for Faxelange Senders N - Narrator B - Belleval ( virtue ) EMMF - Madame de Faxelange (virtue) EG - Goé ( virtue ) MF - Monsieur de Faxelange ( virtue ) E MLLE F - Mademoiselle de Faxelange (virtue) E F - Franlo (vice) Receivers MF - Monsieur de Faxelange MMF - Madame de Faxelange MLLE F - Mademoiselle de Faxelange RG - General G - Goé F - Franlo PG - Père de Goé ( virtue ) D - Dragons ( virtue ) FC - Femme de chambre ( virtue ) Faxelange- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Persecuted Virtue EMMF-MMF

1

EMMLLEF-RG EMLLE F-MMF+MF EMLLEF-F EMLLE F-G

1 1 2 1

N-RG N-G N-MF+MMF N-MLLE F N-F N-FC

5 6 1 42 1 1

EF-F+RG EF-MLLEF EF-F

1 1 4

EG-MLLEF EG-G EG-F

3 4 1

11 Faxelange- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Active Virtue N-PG N-G N-MF N-MLLEF N-G+MLLEF N-RG N-MF+MMF N-F N-MMF

2 3 1 36 3 9 2 10 1

EF-F EF-RG EF-RG+MLLEF

4 6 1

B-F

3

EMF-RG

1

EMLLEF-RG EMLLEF-MLLEF EMLLEF-F EMLLEF-G EMLLEF-MMF

3 1 4 2 1

EG-G EG-MLLEF

1 1

EMLLEF-MLLEF EMLLEF-G EMLLEF-F EMLLEF-RG

9 2 4 2

EF-F+RG EF-RG EF-MLLEF

3 12 6

EF-F EG-MLLEF EG-G

4 4 1

EG-RG EG-F EG-MLLEF EF-F EF-RG EF-G EF-RG+F

1 3 6 2 5 1 2

Active Vice N-D N-MLLEF N-F N-MF N-G N-RG N-F+RG

2 6 6 1 3 4 2

EF-FC EF-F

1 11

Judgmental Vice N-MLLEF N-MF+MMF N-G+MLLEF N-G N-RG N-F N-F+MLLEF

11 3 2 3 13 11 1

N-F+RG

2

B-F EMLLEF-RG EMLLE F-F+RG EMLLEF-F EMLLEF-G

1 3 2 5 4

Faxelange- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS EMMF-MF

1

EMLLEF-RG 9 EMLLEF-MMF+MF1 EMLLEF-F 15 EMLLEF-G 9 EMLLEF-MLLEF 10 EMLLEF-MF 1 E MLLE F - F+RG 2 N-RG N-MF+MMF N-G

31 3 15

N-MLLEF N-F N-FC N-PG N-MF N-D N-F+RG N-F+MLLEF

95 28 1 2 2 2 4 1

EF-FC EF-RG EF-G

1 23 1

EG-MLLEF EG-G EG-F EG-RG

11 9 8 1

EF-F+RG EF-MLLEF EF-F EF-RG+MLLEF

6 7 21 1

B-F

4

EMF-RG

1

12

The Vocabulary Lists. - A glance at the following vocabulary lists shows that certain words are repeated in surprisingly large quantities. The word malheureux, for instance, appears twenty-five times. The lists also show that the most often repeated virtue words occur with a higher frequency than the most often repeated vice words. The four vocabulary lists that follow show that the same words have a tendency to reappear in the same proportions. Faxelange- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue Tokens abattement accabler affaiblir chagrins déplorable désespoir douleur faible

1 4 1 1 1 5 5 3

Tokens immoler 1 4 infortuné larmes (inclui17 des pleurs ) 25 malheureux 2 misère 1 plaintes 2 sacrifice

Tokens sanglots supplice tourment triste victime

1 1 1 3 1 —

total: 83

Type Total: 21 Active Virtue

Tokens 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 4 2 1 5 2 1

aimable amitié attendrir aveuglement candeur complaisance confiance conscience courage créature décent délicat digne distinction

Tokens

Tokens doux fidèle foi grâce heroiïie honnête honneur innocence intéressant justice modestie noble pitié précieux

4 1 1 2 1 11 4 4 2 3 1 2 2 1

principes probité prudent reconnaissance remords respect sacré sage sensible sincère tendre vertu

1 1 1 1 5 3 2 3 3 2 6 3 —

total: 96

Type Total: 40 Active Vice abandon assomer coquin corrompre créature

Tokens 3 2 2 1 1

Tokens crime délit dépouiller déshonorer diffammer

6 1 4 1 1

Tokens égorger escroc faute feindre fripon

3 1 2 1 1

Faxelange- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Active Vice infidèle mal massacrer menacer périr piller punir

Tokens 3 3 1 2 2 1 3

Tokens

Tokens ravir ruiner séduire sophismes souiller tort trahir

1 4 10 1 1 2 4

tromper tuer venger violence voler

6 5 2 1 2 —

total: 82

Type Total: 34 Judgmental Vice Tokens abfme adroit affreux ambition art astuce avarice barbarie bête bourreau brûler cruel effrayant effroyable enivré farouche

2 1 8 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 9 1 1 1 1

Tokens fatal faste feindre féroce feux flétrir frémir froid furieux gouffre hait horreur infâmie injuste jeu impétueux

1 1 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 7 1 1 1 1

Tokens imprudence luxe méfiance monstre opprobre orgueil outragé perfide politique ruse sang scélérat sombre terrible —

total: 86

Type Total: 46 Faxelange- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue malheureux larmes désespoir douleur accabler infortuné désoler

25 17 5 5 4 4 3

faible triste misère sacrifier abattement affaiblir chagrins

3 3 2 2 1 1 1

1 1 1 5 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 7 2 1

déplorable immoler plainte sanglots supplice tourment victime

14 Faxelange- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Active Virtue honnête tendre délicat remords courage doux honneur innocence aimable justice respect sage sensible

11 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3

vertu candeur créature digne grâce intéressant noble pitié sacré sincère amitié attendrir aveuglement

3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1

conscience confiance complaisance décent distinction fidel foi heroiïie modestie précieux probité prudent reconnaissance

10 6 6 5 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3

assomer coquin faute menacer périr tort venger voler corrompre créature délit déshonorer

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

diffamer escroc feindre fripon massacrer piller ravir sophismes souiller violence

ambition astuce avarice bourreau bête déchirer effrayant effroyable enivré faste farouche fatal feux froid furieux

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

gouffre hatr impétueux imprudence imfâmie injuste jeu luxe méfiance opprobre perfide politique ruse sang terrible

Active Vice séduire tromper crime tuer dépouiller ruiner trahir abandon égorger infidel mal punir Judgmental Vice cruel affreux horreur scélérat monstre barbarie brûler féroce flétrir frémir orgueil outrage sombre abCme adroit

9 8 7 7 5 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

15 EUGÉNIE DE FRANVAL We noted that certain phenomena were beginning to emerge from the Faxelange arrays: almost the same number of tokens in each of the four categories, a higher proportion of vice types to virtue types, the assimilation of virtue vocabulary by the vicious protagonist and vice vocabulary by the virtuous protagonist, and the repetition of more virtue than vice vocabulary. It now remains to be seen how the categories interrelate in Eugénie de Franval and what recurring patterns may or may not unfold. TABLE 2: Eugénie de Franval Total Vocabulary: 24,120 Tokens 1,121 words relating to vice and virtue 419 words relating to virtue 702 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue

157 occurrences 262 occurrences 419 total

active vice judgmental vice

262 occurrences 440 occurrences 702 total

Types 278 types of words relating to vice and virtue 99 words relating to virtue 179 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue

-

27 occurrences 72 occurrences 99 total

active vice judgmental vice

- 71 occurrences - 108 occurrences 179 total

Symbols for Eugénie de Franval

16 Senders N - Narrator F - Franval (vice) E - Eugénie ( vice ) EMF - Madame de Franval ( virtue ) EC - Clervil (virtue) V - Valmont ( vice ) Receivers EG - General R F - Franval MF - Madame de Franval R E - Eugénie RMMF - Mère de Madame de Franval ( virtue ) RV - Valmont RC - Clervil Eugénie de Franval- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Persecuted Virtue N-RMMF N-MF N-RE N-RG N-RC N-RF

1 56 9 4 4 12

F-RG F-RE F-RF F-RF+RE

2 7 9 3

F-MF E-RE E-RE+RF

3 4 1

EMF-MF EMF-RE EMF-RF EMF-RG EMF-RE EMF-RF EMF-RG

5 4 2 1 4 2 1

F-RG+RF F-RF F-RG F-RC F-RE F-RMMF F-MF F-RV

1 12 5 4 12 2 17 4

EC-MF EC-RG EC-RF EC-RMMF EC-RE EC-RE+MF

5 3 4 1 4 1

V-RV V-MF

1 1

Active Virtue N-RV+MF N-RF+RV+RE N-RG N-RF N-RF+RE N-RC N-MF N-RG+RE N-RV N-RE N-RMMF F-RF+RE F-RG+MF

1 1 8 11 6 21 60 3 2 19 1 1 2

V-RG V-RV V-RF V-MF

1 1 2 6

EC-RE EC-RG EC-MF EC-RF EC-RMMF

4 10 8 2 3

EMF-MF EMF-RMMF EMF-RF

5 1 5

E-RE E-RC E-MF

3 2 2

17 Eugénie de Fran v a l - SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Active Vice N-RF+RE+MF N-RE+RG N-RC N-RG N-RF N-RE N-RE+RF N-RG+RF N-RV N-MF

1 1 3 7 45 14 6 1 11 6

F-RE F-RG F-RC F-RF+RE F-RV

7 11 2 1 7

EC-RG EC-RF EC-MF EC-RE

16 16 2 1

F-RF F-MF

17 18

EMF-MF EMF-RE+RF

3 3

EMF-RE EMF-RF EMF-RV

5 17 2

E-RE E-RG E-RC E-MF

1 1 3 2

V-RG V-MF V-RF V-RV

4 3 4 2

2

Judgmental Vice N-RV N-RF+RV N-RG N-RMMF N-RF N-RF+RE+RV N-RE N-RF+RE N-RC V-RG N-MF EC-RC EC-RF EC-RF+RE EC-RE EC-MF

11 1 13 1 102 4 36 15 1 10 16

EC-RG

13

V-RF+RE

F-RMMF F-MF F-RF F-MF+RMMF F-RE F-RF+MF F-RG F-RE+RF F-RV

1 17 19 6 7 2 13 4 6

2 22 6 3 1

V-RE V-RF V-MF V-RV V-RG

EMF-RF EMF-RC EMF-RV EMF-RV+MF EMF-MF EMF-RE EMF-RF+RE EMF-RMMF E-RC E-RG E-RE E-MF E-RF E-RF+RE

1 4 3 7 3

22 3 1 1 5 10 3 2 3 1 8 1 2 1

Eugénie de Franval- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTAU3 N-RMMF N-MF N-RE N-RG N-RC N-RF N-RF+RE N-RV+MF N-RF+RV+RE N-RG-RE

3 139 78 32 29 170 27 1 5 4

N-RV N-RG+RF N-RF+RE+MF N-RF+RV

24 2 1 1

E-RE E-RE+RF E-RC E-MF

16 2 8 5

EMF-MF EMF-RE EMF-RF EMF-RG EMF-RMMF EMF-RE+RF EMF-RV EMF-RV+MF

18 19 46 4 3 3 3 1

EC-MF

15

18 Eugénie de Fran val- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS EC-RG EC-RF EC-RMMF EC-RE EC-RE+MF EC-RC EC-RE+RF

42 44 4 12 1 2 2

F-RG

31

33 57 9 55 2 1 6 3 17

F-RE F-RF F-RF+RE F-MF F-RG+MF F-RG+RF F-RC F-RMMF F-RV

F-MF+RMMF F-RF+MF

6 2 11 13 8 10 1 2

V-RV V-MF V-RG V-RF V-RE V-RF+RE

Eugénie de Fran vai- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue Tokens 1 6 2 4 1 3 9 2 11

abattement accabler affliction autel bourrelé chagrin désespoir désoler douleur

Tokei

Tokens dupe faible gémir immoler infortuné larmes (inclu des pleurs) malheureux mélancolie

2 6 1 4 9 19 51 2

naïf pathétique plainte se meurtrir supplice tourment tristesse victime vierge

1 1 3 1 1 2 1 9 4

total: 157 Type Total: 27 Active Virtue aimable aménité amitié ange assiduité attentions attendrir bienfaits candeur celeste complaisant confiance conscience corriger courage crédulité décence

Tokens 1 3 1 10 1 1 1 2 6 2 1 1 4 2 1 1 1

Tokens délicat devoir dévote dévotion digne divine droiture doux estime excellent franchise généreux grâce heroine honnête honneur indulgence

4 6 1 1 7 2 1 12 3 6 2 6 1 11 4 1 1

Tokens ingénuité 7 innocent 1 intéressant ( in Dorgeville under judgmenttal vice ) 6 juste 2 louange 1 modestie 3 moraux 4 noble 2 pieux 1 pitié 1 précieux 1 principes 4 probité 1 prude 1

19

Eugénie de Franval- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Active Virtue

Tokens

prudent pudeur pur raison rare récompensé reconnaissance régularité

2 5 1 1 1 1 1 1

Tokens religion remords repentir respectable retenue sacré Sagesse scrupuleux

4 10 5 12 1 1 10 1

Tokens sensible sincère sublime tendresse utile vérités vertu

6 4 1 19 1 3 20

total: 262

Type Total: 72 Active Vice

Tokens

abandon accuser adultère amant armes assassiner blâme brigand calominateur catin chute complice condamner conquête conspirer contrainte contrefaire coquin corrompre crime défaite délit déshonneur

3 1 2 4 1 1 1 1 6 1 3 5 1 3 1 1 2 2 3 42 1 1 4

Tokens desseins égorger erreurs esclavage étouffer fausseté feinte forfaits fraude imposture incartade inceste inconduite inconstant indiscrétion infidèle infraction ingratitude injures illicite libertinage maltresse mal

2 1 6 2 1 14 1 2 1 3 1 5 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 4 1 7

Tokens malhonnête 2 menacer 1 2 meurtrir noirceur 5 1 offenser 2 parjure 1 parricide 1 périr 3 piège punition 7 1 ruiner séduire 18 1 sophismès 2 souiller 22 torts 9 trahir 2 travers tromper 1 12 vengeance venin 4 vice 9 1 violence 1 voleur total: 262

Type Total: 71 Judgmental Vice Tokens abîme abhorrer

1 1

Tokens abominable adresse

2 1

Tokens adroit affreux

3 9

20

Eugénie de Franval- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Judgmental Vice Tokens allumer animal ardent art (includes artifices ) atroce audace barbare bête brûler coupable créature cruel danger débauché déchaîner déchirer délices délire dépravé désirs désordres despote destructeur détestable dévorer dureté écarts échauffer effrayer effronterie égarer égoisme élégance

1 1 5 7 6 2 2 1 3 13 13 15 5 1 1 7 1 2 1 4 8 2 1 3 1 1 3 2 9 1 8 1 2

Tokens 1 embraser 1 endurci 9 enflammer 1 épouvantable 2 excès 2 exécrable 2 fatal 5 fers 1 féroce 1 feu 1 finement 2 fléaux 2 flegme 9 flétrir 3 fourberie frein (includes 6 enfreindre ) 3 frémir 4 funeste 3 fureur 1 furies 5 haine 1 honte horreur 30 4 imagination 1 impétueux 3 imprudent 11 impudence 2 impunément 1 impur 1 indécence 1 indifférence 4 indigne 4 infâme

Tokens 3 ingrat 7 injuste insidieux 1 1 insolence intrigue 9 2 irrégularité 2 ivresse jouir 7 6 méchanceté 6 mépris 3 misérable monstre 10 odieux 6 outrage 11 passions 9 14 perfide péril 1 pervers 3 plaisirs 11 1 politique 1 raffinement 1 rage rigeur 6 2 sacrificateur sang-froid 7 scélérat 11 2 sinistre systèmes 1 tourbillon 1 turbulent 1 tyran 5 1 vil volupté 5 total: 440

Type Total: 108 Eugénie de Franval- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue malheureux larmes douleur désespoir infortune

51 19 11 9 9

victime accabler faible autel immoler

9 6 6 4 4

vierge chagrin plainte affliction consommer

4 3 3 2 2

21 Eugénie de Fran val- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue désoler dupe mélancolie tourment

2 2 2 2

abattement bourrelée gémir se meurtrir

1 1 1 1

20 19 12 12 11 10 10 10 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4

sincère estime modestie vérité aménité bienfaits céleste corriger divine généreux juste noble prudent aimable amitié attendrir attentions assiduités complaisant confiance courage crédulité décence dévote

3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

42 22 18 14 12 9 9 7 7 6 6 5 5 5 4

déshonneur libertinage venin abandon chute conquête corrompre imposture piège adultère contrefaire coquin desseins esclavage forfaits

4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2

pathétique supplice tristesse

1 1 1

Active Virtue vertu tendresse doux respectable honnête ange remords sagesse digne innocent candeur devoir franchise grâce intéressant sensible pudeur repentir conscience délicat honneur moraux principes religion

dévotion droiture égards excellent herotne indulgent ingénuité louange pieux pitié précieux probité prude pur raison rare récompense régularité retenue scrupuleux sublime utile

Active Vice crimes torts séduire faux vengeance trahir vice mal punition calominateur erreurs complice inceste noirceur amant

inconstant indiscrétion infidel injures malhonnête meurtre parjure souiller travers accuser armes assassin blâme brigand catin

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

22

Eugénie de Fran val- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Active Vice condamner conspirer contrainte défaite délit égorger étouffer feinte fraude

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

incartades inconduite infraction ingratitude illicite maîtresse menacer mentir offenser

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

parricide périr ruiner sophismes tromper violence voleur

funeste imagination indigne infâme adroit brûler détestable écarts fourberie frémir fureurs imprudent ingrat misérable pervers abominable audace barbare délire despote échauffer élégance exces exécrable fatal fléaux flegme impunément irrégularité ivresse sacrificateur abhorrer adresse allumer animal bête

4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

débauché déchaîner délices destructeur dévorer dureté effronterie égoîsme embraser endurci énergie épouvantable féroce feu finement furies impétueux impur indécence honte indifférence insidieux insolence péril politique raffinements rage ruse sinistre systèmes ténébreux tourbillon turbulent vil

Judgmental Vice horreur cruel perfide coupable créature impudence outrage plaisirs scélérat monstre affreux effrayer enflammer intrigue passions flétrir désordre égarer art déchirer injuste jouir sang-froid atroce frein méchanceté mépris odieux rigeur ardent dangereux fers haine tyran volupté désirs

30 15 14 13 13 11 11 11 11 10 9 9 9 9 9 e 8 8 7 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4

23

Eugénie de Franval, which is three times the length of Faxelange, has a slightly higher ratio of all words relating to vice and virtue than Faxelange. The distribution of the token categories is not as equally apportioned as in the former, although active virtue and active vice do have the same number of occurrences within the story. This equal distribution of words is maintained, as the first page of tables shows, in the type counterparts. The persecuted virtue category has proportionally the same number of words as in Faxelange, whereas the other three categories are considerably higher. The phenomenon of vice describing itself as virtue and virtue as vice repeats itself in Eugénie de Franval. On page 17, for instance Franval speaks of himself in active vice terms 17 times, but speaks of his virtuous wife in these terms 18 times. Vocabulary lists illustrate a wide selection of moral terminology, and, as in Faxelange, certain words, such as tendresse and larmes are constantly repeated, while many other words are used only once. The particularly great amount of vocabulary variety in this work creates the effect of an entire moral arsenal used to impress the reader through sheer quantity and force if by nothing else. FLORVILLE ET COURVAL Florville et Courval, twice the length of Faxelange and a third as long as Eugénie de Franval, has approximately the same proportion of words relating to vice and virtue as in the other two stories. The same patterns of vocabulary transfer and a greater repetition of the most frequent virtue words rather than the vicious t e r m s occur here as in the two preceding tales. TABLE 3: Florville et Courval Total Vocabulary: 16, 640 Tokens 809 words relating to vice and virtue 403 words relating to virtue 406 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

- 116 occurrences - 240 occurrences 406 total - 132 occurrences - 271 occurrences 403 total

Types 226 types of words relating to vice and virtue

24

93 words relating to virtue 133 words relating to vice persecuted virtue - 25 occurrences active virtue - 68 occurrences 93 total active vice - 44 occurrences judgmental vice - 89 occurrences 133 total Symbols for Florville et Courval Senders N-Narrator CC-Confrère de Courval ( virtue ) EC-Courval ( virtue ) EF-Florville (virtue) EMFC-Mère de Florville ( vice ) E V-Madame Verquin ( vice ) ES-Senneval (fils de Courval ) ( vice and virtue) ESP-Saint-Prat ( virtue ) L-Madame de Lérnice (virtue) ED-Madame de Dulfort ( virtue ) ESA-Saint-Ange (vice) FI-Femme Inconnue (vice) EFC-fils de Courval, Senneval E( A) FC-Enfant de Senneval, fils de Courval, Saint-Ange Receivers MFC-Femme de Courval, la Femme Inconnu RG-General C-Courval filsC-same as S and later FC F-Florville SP-Saint-Prat V-Madame Verquin MV-Maison de Verquin S-Senneval EF-Enfant de F+S L-Madame de Lérnice SA-Saint-Ange MD-Madame Delfort P-Pasteur (virtue) FI-Femme Inconnu VFI-Victime de la Femme Inconnu FC-Fils de Courbai, or fils C and Senneval E FC-Enfant de S, fils C, FC or Saint-Ange AFC-Amie du fils de Courval ( virtue )

25 Florville et Courval- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Persecuted Virtue N-C N-F N-RG N-FC N-FC+C

3 11 3 2 2

EC-F EC-RG

4 1

FI-FI FI-F

1 1

EF-FI EF-F EF-MD EF-L

3 51 1 3

EF-RG EF-SA EF-S EF-V EF-F+RG EF-SP

5 18 2 3 1 2

ESP-RG ESP-F

11 4

EFC-F EFC-FC EFC-FC+RG EFC-RG EFC-C EFC-AFC

3 7 1 2 1 1

ESA-SA

3

EV-RG EV-V EV-F

6 3 1

EAFC-FC EAFC-EFC

1 1

EMFC-RG

2

L-L L-RG

1 3

Active Virtue N-FC+C N-RG N-C N-F N-FC N-SP

2 4 6 18 2 1

EF-F EF-S+V

EF-P EF-L EF-F+L EF-F+S EF-S EF-RG EF-RG+L EF-SP EF-C EF-V EF-SA

2 39 3 1 3 7 2 20 6 5 4

27 2

ED-L

1

EV-F EV-RG EV-V

CC-F

7

EC-F

7

FI-F

2

RC-C

1

EFC-AFC EFC-F EFC-RG EFC-FC EFC-C

2 1 1 1 1

EAFC-F

1

ESA-F

1

L-RG L-F

3 2

L-F L-RG L-RG+F

1 12 1

ESP-RG ESP-F

23 1

MF-F

2

10 7 4

Active Vice N-MFC N-FC N-RG N-F

1 2 2 1

EF-FI EF-V+RG EF-L

3 1 2

EF-F EF-C EF-RG EF-S EF-SA EF-V EF-VFI EF-S+V

21 1 8 10 8 22 1 2

ESP-RG ESP-F E MFC-MFC EMFC-RG

14 3 5 1

26

Florville et Courval- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Active Vice EFC-FC EFC-MFC EFC-RG

1 2 1

EC-F EC-V EC-SA

2 1 1

EV-RG

1

ESA-SA

1

CC-F

1

EV-F

4

EAFC-EFC

2

N-RG+F N-MFC N-FC N-F N-F+S N-RG

1 1 1 11 2 17

EF-S EF-L

6 1

EAFC-EFC

2

2

E MFC-MFC

4

EF-SA EF-RG+L EF-R+L EF-S+V EF-F+S EF-RG EF-F EF-V EF-FI

19 1 1 2 1 42 35 37 4

EV-V EV-RG EV-F EV-S

2 3 1

EC-RG EC-SA EC-FC

3 1 1

ESP-F ESP-RG

5 21

L-RG L-F

12 1

ES-F+S ES-F ES-SA

1 1 1

FI-F

1

Judgmental Vice

ESA-SA ESA-F

Florville et Courval- SENDER A! N-C N-F N-RG N-FC N-FC-C N-SP N-MFC N-RG+F N-F+S

9 41 26 7 4 1 2 1 2

EC-F EC-RG EC-C EC-V EC-SA

13 4 1 1 2

FI-FI FI-F

1 4

EF-FI

10

EF-F EF-MD EF-L EF-RG EF-SA EF-S EF-V EF-F+RG EF-SP EF-P EF-F+L EF-F+S EF-RG+L EF-SP EF-C EF-S+V EF-V+RG EF-VFI ESP-RG

5 6 RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS 134 1 45 62 50 21 67 1 2 2 4 4 3 20 7 6 1 1 69

ESP-F

13

EFC-F EFC-FC EFC-FC+RG EFC-RG EFC-C EFC-AFC EFC-MFC

4 14 1 4 2 3 2

ESA-SA ESA-F EV-RG EV-V EV-F EV-A EAFC-FC EAFC-EFC

9 7 16 9 18 1 2 5

27

Florville et Courval- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS EAFC-F

1

EMFC-RG EMFC-MFC

3 9

L-L L-RG L-F L-RG+F

1 30 4 1

ED-L

1

CC-F

8

MF-F

2

Florville et Courval- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue Tokens accabler affliger anéantir chagrins déplorer désespoir douleur dupe esclave

1 1 1 6 2 9 9 3 3

Tokens

Tokens faible gémir immoler infortune larmes malheureux misérable navrer pénible

6 2 1 11 24 61 1 1 1

persécuté plainte sacrifice supplice tourment triste victime

1 1 2 2 2 3 9

total: 116

Type Total: 25 Active Virtue

Tokens

Tokens

agréable aimable aménité amitié ange attendrir austérité aveugle bienfaisance bienfaiteur bonté candeur céleste chaste confiance conscience courage créature crédule décence délicat devoirs dévote Type Total: 68

1 6 2 2 1 1 2 4 3 3 1 2 2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 7 1 1

digne divine doux éclairé égards estime fidélité foi franchise généreux grâce héroïque honnêteté honneur humanité innocence intéressant juste modestie moeurs morale noblesse pieux

4 1 8 2 1 4 1 3 1 1 3 1 14 2 2 2 4 2 2 4 4 3 4

Tokens pitié principes prude prudence pur ( includes épuré) raisonnable régularité religion remords repentir réserve respect retenue sacré sage sensible sentiment sévérité sincère tendre vérité vertu

2 6 1 1 4 2 2 9 8 2 1 6 1 1 5 8 2 1 2 9 1 32

total: 240

28

Florville et Courval- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Active Vice

Tokens

abandon amant assassiner attentat calomnie chute conquête crime délaisser desseins déshonorer détracteur détruire impoi sonner erreur

5 4 2 1 1 2 2 24 1 1 3 1 3 1 4

Tokens

Tokens 1 7 1 1 1 1 1 6 2 1 2 1 1 2 3

fausseté faute feindre forfaits fripon insulte libertinage mal meurtre meurtrière noircir nuire périr piège poignarder

punir ravaler ravir séduire sophismes souiller torts traître travers tromper tuer venger vice violence

2 1 2 12 3 2 4 2 3 4 1 2 5 4

total: 132

Type Total: 44 Judgmental Vice Tokens abominable adroit affreux animaux atroce audace avilir barbare brûler consommer coupable créature cruel dangereux débauché déchirer dépravé dérèglement désordre dévorer écarts effrayer égarements élégance empesté

1 2 19 1 1 1 2 1 3 3 1 5 5 23 3 1 3 1 1 6 2 1 18 6 1

Tokens endurcissement énergie enfreindre épicurienne épouvantable excès farouche fatal féroce fers feu ( includes enflammer ) flamme fléaux flétrir foudre frémir frissonner frivolité furies furieux funeste gouffre haine horreur

1 1 1 3 1 4 1 7 1 2 3 4 2 2 1 9 1 1 1 4 8 1 3 6

Tokens illicite imagination immoral impétueux impie impudent impunité inconduite incrédulité indépendence infâme ingrat insensible insolent intrigue ivresse maligne méchant mépriser misérable monstre odieux opprobre orgueil outrager

1 2 1 3 2 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 1 1 1 2 1 4 3 3 3 3 1 1 2

29

Florville et Courval- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST

sang-froid sanglant stoi'cisme système passions perfide

Tokens 1 1 1 1 9 4

Tokens pervers plaisirs raffiner rigeur sanglant scélérat

2 12 1 2 2 1

Tokens sinistre vil volupté système

2 1 3 3 total: 271

Type Total: 89 Florville et Courval- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue malheureux larmes infortune désespoir douleur victime chagrins faible désoler

61 24 11 9 9 9 6 6 3

dupe esclave triste déplorer gémir tourment sacrifice supplice accabler

3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1

affliger anéantir immoler misérable navrer pénible persécuté plainte

32 14 9 9 8 8 8 7 7 6 6 6 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3

courage décence devoirs foi grâce noblesse aménité amitié austérité candeur céleste chaste conscience créature éclairé humanité honneur innocence juste modestie pitié raisonnable régularité

3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

repentir sentiment sincère agréable ange attendrir confiance crédulité dévote divine égards fidélité franchise généreux héroïque prude prudence réserve retenue sacré sévérité vérité

Active Virtue vertu honnête religion tendre doux remords sensible bonté délicat aimable principes respect sage aveugle estime digne intéressant moeurs morale pieux pur bienfaiteur bienfaisance

2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

30

Florville et Courval- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Active Vice crime séduire faute mal abandon vice amant erreur torts tromper violence déshonorer détruire poignarder sophismes

24 12 7 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3

travers assassiner chute conquête meurtre noircir piège punir ravir souiller traître venger attentat calomnie débaucher

3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1

délaisser détracteur empoisonner fausseté feindre forfaits fripon libertinage meurtrière nuire périr ravaler tuer

23 19 18 12 9 9 8 7 6 6 6 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

odieux volupté adroit audace dévorer fers fléaux flétrir imagination impie incrédulité outrage perversité rigeur sanglant sinistre système ivresse abominable animaux atroce avilir consommer dérèglement desseins écarts élégance empesté endurci énergie

3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

épicurienne épouvantable exécrable farouche féroce foudre frisonner frivolité furies gouffre illicite immoral impudent impunité inconduite indépendence ingrat insensible insolent intrigue maligne orgueil opprobre raffiner sang-froid scélérat stoi'cisme vil

Judgmental Vice cruel affreux effrayer plaisirs frémir passion funeste fatal désordre égarements horreur coupable créature excès flamme furieux méchant perfide barbare brûler dangereux déchirer enfreindre feu haine impétueux infâme mépriser misérable monstre

31

The token and type distributions in this tale differ from the other two works. In Faxelange the distribution of token categories was roughly equal ; in Eugénie de Franval the same number of active virtue and active vice tokens were found. This work is the only one in which persecuted virtue is considerably higher than active vice and active vice is considerably lower than active virtue. The type category distribution, however, remains similar to the other works. The persecuted virtue types remain roughly the same number, although the repetitions are much greater. Active vice types, as in Eugénie de Franval, are less than those of active virtue, and the judgmental vice category remains the greatest of the four. The inordinately large number of senders and receivers is due to the fact that Florville is narrating her life history. The narrator's moral stance is replaced by that of a character. Because the p e r secuted Florville narrates the story there are much fewer vice senders than virtue. DORGEVILLE Dorgeville, the shortest of the tales studied, retains the same proportion of words relating to vice and virtue as the other three works. The distribution of the token and type categories is similar to that of Eugénie de Franval and Florville et Courval. The descending order vocabulary list contains the same frequency patterns a s in the other stories, the word malheureux occurring with much more frequency than any other. The active virtue classification, while containing more types of words, again has words repeated with less frequency than the persecuted virtue classification. TABLE 4: Dorgeville Total vocabulary: 8, 300 Tokens 318 words relating to vice and virtue 120 words relating to virtue 198 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

45 75 120 - 73 - 125 198

occurrences occurrences total occurrences occurrences total

Types 130 words relating to vice and virtue

32

41 words relating to virtue 88 words realting to vice persecuted virtue active virtue

- 9 occurrences - 33 occurrences 42 total

active vice judgmental vice

- 2 7 occurrences - 61 occurrences 88 total

Symbols for Dorgeville Senders N-Narrator D-Dorgeville (virtue) C-Cécile (vice) CI-Saint-Surin ( vice ) G-General (others speaking-virtue) P-Cécile's "parents" (virtue) M-Maréchaussée ( virtue ) Receivers RD-Dorgeville RC-Cécile RCl-Saint-Surin R N-Narrator RG-General (reader) RC2-Child of Cécile RP-Cécile's "parents" Dorgeville- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Persecuted Virtue N-RD N-RG N-RC

12 3 8

D-RC D-RG

4 2

Cl-RC

2

G-RG

1

C-RC C-RC2

8 2

P-RP

1

M-RD

2

D-RC D-RP D-RG D-RG+RC2

7 1 1 2

Cl-RC

1

Active Virtue N-RD N-RC N-RG N-RC1 N-RP N-RC+RD

26 13 10 1 2 1

Cl-RD C-RP C-RD M-RD P-RD

33 Dorgeville- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Active Vice N-RC N-RG

12 6

C-RC C-RG

16 2

C-RC+RC1 C-RC+RG C-RD C-RP

1 1 2 1

C-RG C-RD C-RC+RC1

2 2 1

Cl-RP

2

P-RC

8

D-RC D-RG

12 13

D-RP

3

P-RC P-RP

8 1

M-RC M-RC1

2 1

G-RG

1

Judgmental Vice N-RG N-RC N-RD N-RP N-RC2 N-RC+RC1

10 23 2 9 2 1

C-RC1 C-RC C-RP

3 18 3

D-RC D-RG D-RC+RC1 D-RG+RP

10 11 2 6

Dorgeville- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS N-RD N-RC N-RC N-RC1 N-RP N-RC+RD N-RC+RC1

40 29 66 1 11 1 1

D-RC D-RG D-RG+RC2 D-RC+RC1 D-RG+RP D-RP

33 27 2 2 6 3

Cl-RC Cl-RD Cl-RP

3 2 1

C-RC C-RC2 C-RP C-RD C-RC+RC1 C-RC+RG C-RC1 C-RG

42 2 C 0 Q y 2

D-RC

34

1 3 2

D-RG D-RP D-RG+RC2 D-RC+RC1 D-RG+RP

27 1 2 2 3

M-RD M-RC M-RC1

2 2 1

G-RG

2

P-RP P-RD P-RC

2 1 16

Dorgeville- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue Tokens accabler délicat douleur

3 3 2

Tokens faiblesse infortune malheureux

1 6 26

Tokens naif plainte victime

1 1 2 total: 45

Type Total: 9

34 Dorgeville- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Active Virtue bienfaisance bienfaiteur bonté candeur charité compassion compatissant cordialité décence délicat devoir

Tokens 4 1 6 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 1

Tokens digne douceur fidélité franc généreux honnête honneur justice loyal noble pitié

1 3 2 3 8 9 2 1 1 2 1

Tokens prudence pudeur pureté religion remords repentir sage sensible sincère tendre vertu

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 2 7 total: 75

Type Total: 33 Active Vice abuser ambition avarice catin chute corruption crime dépraver deshonneur erreur

Tokens

Tokens 2 1 1 1 2 1 15 1 5 1

étouffer fausseté faute forfaits inceste libertinage maux meurtres nuire plaisir

2 1 12 2 1 1 5 1 1 1

Tokens poison punition séduire tort trahir tuer vengeance violer

2 3 3 6 1 1 2 1

total: 73

Type Total: 27 Judgmental Vice Tokens abaissement abîme adresse adroit atroce affreux aventurière barbare bronze chute créature cruel coupable

1 2 1 1 3 6 1 4 2 2 5 19 5

Tokens danger délire dépravé désordre dureté effrayant épouvantable exécrable fatal fer féroce flétrissure frein

2 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 1

Tokens frémir funeste haine honte horrible impudence indécent indigne infâme injuste insolemment intéressant ivresse

2 3 1 3 1 1 1 2 8 1 1 3 1

35

Porge ville- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Judgmental Vice Tokens maudit méchant mépris misérable monstre odieux opprobre

1 1 1 2 3 2 4

Tokens outrage perfide pervers plaisir précipice rigeur ruse

1 2 2 1 1 1 1

Tokens scélérat sévérité ténébreux terrible vil

3 1 1 1 1

total: 125

Type Total: 61 Dorgeville- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue malheureux infortune accabler

26 6 3

délicat douleur victime

3 2 2

faiblesse naïf plainte

1 1 1

justice pitié bienfaiteur candeur charité compassion compatissant cordialité devoir digne fidélité

2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

loyal noble prudence pudeur pureté religion remords repentir sage sincère

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

15 12 6 5 5 3 3 2 2 2

forfaits poison vengeance ambition avarice catin corruption dépravé erreur fausseté

2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

inceste libertinage meurtres nuire plaisir trahir tuer violer

19 8

affreux coupable

6 5

créature barbare

Active Virtue honneur honnête vertu bonté bienfaisance décence sensible douceur généreux tendre franc

9 8 7 6 4 4 4 3 3 3 2

Active Vice crime faute tort déshonneur maux punition séduire abuser chute étouffer Judgmental Vice cruel infâme

5 4

36 Porge ville- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Judgmental Vice opprobre atroce dureté funeste intéressant honte monstre scélérat abfme chute dangereux effrayant féroce flétrissure frémir indigne misérable

4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

odieux perfide pervers abaissement adresse adroit animal aventurière bronze délire dépravé désordre fer fatal frein haine impudence

2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

indécence injuste insolemment ivresse maudit méchant mépris outrage plaisir précipice rigeur ruse sévérité ténébreux terrible vil

In this work the active virtue and active vice token categories are roughly equivalent. Persecuted virtue is a little more than half that of active virtue. Active vice is a little more than half that of judgmental vice in both cases. The active virtue and active vice type categories are again roughly equivalent, whereas the persecuted virtue types are much fewer proportionally than the figures in the last three works. Due to the low type figure for persecuted virtue, the active virtue figure is almost four times as much, as compared to two or three times as much in all the other works. The same phenomenon of virtue labeling itself as vice and vice as virtue occurs in this story as in the three others. The villainous Cécile speaks of herself in persecuted virtue terms eight times, whereas she, who is persecuting Dorgeville, does not even mention him in these terms. The same type of word distribution occurs as in the other three tables. LA COMTESSE DE SANCERRE La Comtesse de Sancerre, along with Dorgeville, are the shortest of the tales studied. Both are approximately the same length and a r e the only two tales in this group whose principal character is a cunningly evil female. The two works, with the exception of the p e r secuted virtue token and type classification, have a very similar distribution of virtue and vice occurrences.

37

TABLE 5: La Comtesse de Sancerre Total vocabulary: 8, 640 Tokens 371 words relating to vice and virtue 141 words relating to virtue 230 words relating to vice persecuted-virtue active virtue

-

73 occurrences 68 occurrences 141 total

active vice judgmental vice

- 88 occurrences - 141 occurrences 230 total

Types 132 types of words relating to vice and virtue 51 words relating to virtue 81 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue

-

18 occurrences 33^ occurrences 51 total

active vice judgmental vice

-

28 occurrences 53 occurrences 81 total

Symbols for La Comtesse de Sancerre Senders N-Narrator EM-Monvel ( virtue ) D-Duc de Bourgogne ( virtue ) EC-La Comtesse A-Amélie S-Salins ( Countess speaks through him ) LXIII-Louis x n i Receivers C-La Comtesse RG-General A-Amélie MC-mari de la Comtesse M-Monvel CB-Charles de Bourgogne (virtue)

38 La Comtesse de Sancerre- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Persecuted Virtue N-RG N-MC N-C N-A N-M A-M

1 3 3 12 14 4

A-A

6

EM-M EM-A EM-S

7 2 1

EC-C EC-C+M EC-A EC-M+A EC-M

3 1 9 1 6

LXin-RG

1

A-A

6

D-M

1

EC-A EC-S EC-M EC-S+RG EC-RG EC-C

1 1 8 1 3 3

EM-A EM-M EM-EC EM-C EM-S

1 3 1 2 1

S-RG

2

EM-S EM-C EM-RG

2 3 1

EC-A EC-S+RG

7 1

EC-CB EC-RG EC-S EC-M EC-C

1 2 10 12 3

LXIII-M+C

1

A-A A-RG A-M

1 1 1

EC-RG+A EC-C EC-M EC-A

1 4 22 6

A-M

2

Active Virtue N-RG N-A N-C N-M N-A+M

4 11 4 7 1

A-C A-A+M A-M

1 2 4

Active Vice N-EC N-C N-M N-RG N-A N-S

1 15 6 1 2 1

EM-M EM-A

8 6

Judgmental Vice N-RG N-M N-A N-C EC-S EC-CB EC-RG

5 12 2 43 5 1 1

A-RG A-C A-A

1 2 6

EM-M EM-A EM-C EM-S EM-RG

4 10 1 3 2

La Comtesse de Sancerre- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS N-RG N-MC N-C N-A

11 3 65 27

N-M N-A+M N-EC N-S

39 1 1 1

A-M A-A A-C A-A+M

11 19 3 2

39

La Comtesse de Sancerre- SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS A-RG

2 13 1 23 1 48 16

EC-C EC-C+M EC-A EC-M+A EC-M EC-S

EC-S+RG EC-RG EC-CB EC-RG+A EM-M EM-A EM-C

2 6 2 1

EM-S

6

LXin-RG LXIII-M+C

1 1

20 19 16

D-M

1

S-RG

2

La Comtesse de Sancerre- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue Tokens accabler 4 chagrin 4 désespoir 9 désolé 3 douleur 9 dupe 1

faiblesse gémir immoler larmes malheurs mélancolie

Tokens 3 1 1 18 10 1

Tokens misérable 1 navrer 1 pusillanime 1 supplice 2 triste 1

digne douceur franc grâce honnête honneur humanité intéressant juste noble piété

Tokens 4 1 1 1 3 7 1 3 3 1 1

Tokens pitié 9 2 précieux 1 prudence r e conna is sanc e 2 2 respect 3 remords 1 sacré 3 sensible 4 sincère 6 tendre 2 vertu

total: 73

Type Total: 18 Active Virtue aimable amitié attendrir brave candeur céleste complaisance constance courage créature crédulité

Tokens 1 3 2 3 1 1 1 1 2 2 2

total: 68 Type Total: 33 Active Vice abuser ambition assassiner conquête

Tokens 1 1 2

1

crimes desseins enlever erreur

Tokens 10 2

1 1

étouffer fausseté feinte forfaits

Tokens 1 2

5 1

40 La Comtesse de Sancerre- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Active Vice

Tokens

infidel injure insulte menacer meurtre poignarder

2 1 1 2 1 4

Tokens punir ravir séduire souiller trahir tort

2 1 2 2 12 3

Tokens tromper tuer vengeance violence

3 1 18 3 —

total: 88

Type Total: 28 Judgmental Vice Tokens affreux allumer ardeur artifice atroce bourreau brûler cruel dangereux déchirer désirs dévorer dur effrayer effrené égarer enflammer exécrable

5 3 2 4 1 1 3 8 5 5 3 1 1 1 1 1 7 1

Tokens fatal feu fourberie frémir funeste furieux hatr horreur impétueux impérieuse imprudent impur indifférence indigne infâme ingrat injuste insolence

1 2 2 6 1 2 6 2 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 2 2 1

Tokens 2 1 1 1 5 3 1 2 5 5 10 3 2 2 1 1 1

irriter ivresse louche méchant mépris monstre odieux orgueil outragé passions perfide périls rage ruse scélérat sinistre vil

total: 141

Type Total: 53 La Comtesse de Sancerre- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue larmes malheurs désespoir douleur accabler chagrins

18 10 9 9 4 4

faiblesse désolé supplice dupe gémir immoler

mélancolie misérable navrer pusillanime sacrifice triste

7 6 4

sincère brave honnête

intéressant juste remords

Active Virtue honneur tendre digne

41 La Comtesse de Sancerre- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Active Virtue sensible amitié attendrir courage créature pitié prudence reconnaissance

3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2

respect vertu aimable candeur céleste complaisant constance crédulité

2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

douceur franc grâce humanité noble pieté précieux sacré

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

18 12 10 5 4 3 3 3 2 2

fausse infidel menacer punir séduire souiller abuser ambition conquête enlever

2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

erreur étouffer forfaits injure insulte meurtre ravir tuer

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

10 8 7 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 3 3 3 3 3

ardeur feu fourberie furieux horreur indifférence ingrat injuste irriter orgueil rage ruse atroce bourreau dévorer dur effrayer effrené

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

égarer exécrable fatal funeste infâmie impérieuse impétueux imprudent impur insolence ivresse louche méchant odieux scélérat sinistre vil

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Active Vice vengeance trahir crimes feinte poignarder tort tromper violence assassiner desseins Judgmental Vice perfide cruel enflammer frémir haïr affreux dangereux déchirer mépris outragé passions artifices allumer brûler désirs indigne monstre périls

The token distribution in La Comtesse de Sancerre differs from that of the preceding stories. The persecuted virtue tokens, unlike all of the other works, are higher than those of active virtue. The a c tive vice category is proportionally much higher than that of active

42

virtue. The type categories, however, remain the same, active vice being lower than active virtue, a s in the other works, and judgmental vice remaining the highest of all four categories. The sender and r e c e i v e r combination tables illustrate the same phenomena as the other stories. Unlike the other tales, however, where t h e r e is a fairly equal balance of virtue and vice senders, it is the Countess who has the principal role. In the vocabulary l i s t s we find that the word distribution remains the same, the only difference being that since this story deals m o r e explicitly with c r i m e than most of the others, the words vengeance and t r a h i r a r e emphasized m o r e heavily in this work than in the preceding ones.

43

4. THE COMPOSITE VOCABULARY LIST

The composite vocabulaiy list shows the total variety of word types that Sade uses. There are 126 words in the two virtue categories; 241 in the vice categories. To facilitate the listing and to keep the work down to manageable proportions, only one form of the word was listed. Synonyms and closely related words have been placed together. The persecuted virtue category contains 36 words, the active virtue 90, the active vice 69, and the judgmental vice 149. Composite Vocabulaiy List for Eugénie de Franval, Dorgeville, Faxelange, La Comtesse de Sancerre and Florville et Courval. Persecuted Virtue ( 36 words ) abattement esclave accabler faible affaiblir gémir affliger immoler anéantir infortuné autel larmes (includes bourrelé pleurs ) chagrins malheureux (includéplorer des malheurs ) désespoir mélancolie désoler misérable (includes douleur misère) dupe naif

navrer pénible persecuté plainte pusillanime sacrifice sanglots se meurtrir supplice tourment triste victime vierge

Active Virtue (90 words) agréable brave aimable bonté aménité candeur amitié céleste gnge charité attendrir chaste austérité compassion aveuglp compatissant bienfaisance complaisance bienfaiteur confiance

consolence constance courage cordialité créature crédule décence délicat devoirs dévot

44 THE COMPOSITE VOCABULARY LIST Active Virtue ( 90 words ) dévotion digne distinction divine droiture doux éclairé égards estime excellent fidélité foi franc généreux grâce héroîtte honnête honneur humanité indulgence

ingénuité innocent intéressant juste loyal modestie moeurs morale noble pieux pitié précieux principes probité prude prudence pudeur pur ( includes épuré ) raison rare

récompense reconnaissance régularité religion remords repentir réserve respect retenue sacré sage scrupuleux sensible sentiment sincère sublime tendre utile vérité vertu

Active Vice (92 words) abandon abuser accuser adultère amant armes assassiner assomer attentat blâmer brigand calomnie catin chute complice condamner conquête conspirer constraindre contrefaire coquin corrompre créature crime défaite

délaisser délit déshonneur desseins détracteur détruire diffamer égorger empoisonner enlever esclavage escroc erreur étouffer fausseté faute feindre forfaits fraude fripon illicite imposture incartade inceste inconduite

inconstant indiscrétion infidel infraction ingratitude injure insulte libertinage maîtresse mal malhonnête massacrer menacer meurtre meurtrière noirceur nuire offenser parjure parricide périr piège piller pignarder poison

45

THE COMPOSITE VOCABULARY LIST Active Vice ( 92 words ) punir ravaler ravir ruiner séduire sophismes

souiller torts trahir travers tromper tuer

venger vice violence violer voleur

Judgmental Vice (147 words) abaissement abîme abhorrer abominable adresse adroit affreux allumer ambition animal ardeur art astuce atroce audace avarice aventurière avilir barbare bête bourreau bronze brûler consommer coupable créature cruel danger débauché déchaîner déchirer délices délire dépravé dérèglement désirs désordres despote déstructeur

détestable dévorer dureté écarts échauffer effrayer effrené effronterie effroyable égarer égoi'sme élégance embraser empesté endurcir énergie enflammer enivrer épicurienne épouvantable excès éxécrable fatal farouche faste fer féroce feu finement flamme fléaux flétrir foudre fourbe frein frémir frisonner frivolité funeste

fureurs furies gouffre haine honte horreur illicite imagination immoral impétueux impérieuse impie imprudent impudent impunité impur indécent indifférence indigne infâme ingrat injuste insidieux insensible insolent intéressant intrigue irrégularité irriter ivresse jeu jouir louche maligne maudit méchant méfiance mépris misérable

46

THE COMPOSITE VOCABULARY LIST Judgmental Vice ( 147 words ) monstre odieux opprobre orgueil outrage passions perfide pervers plaisirs politique

précipice raffinement rage rigeur ruse sacrificateur sang sang-froid scélérat sévérité

sinistre sombre système ténébreux terrible tourbillon turbulent tyran vil volupté

Within each category ( 1 ) there is a large variety of words, the persecuted virtue category being the most uniform. Here there is an obvious preference for adjectives over nouns. Many of the words relate to tears and sorrow. Certain words, such as la malheureuse and les pleurs are literally beaten to death from over-use. The word dupe was also included under this heading because the virtuous heroines are constantly being taken advantage of, yet they, too, will use their wiles in order to dupe in the name of self-preservation. Villains often become the dupe of virtue. In Miss Henrietta Stralson, for instance, the debauched Granwell, in two outbursts of honesty and generosity, becomes the dupe of the virtuous Henrietta and concedes to grant her freedom. The active virtue classification includes four main types of groupings: ( 1 ) Words related to the senses and emotions, such as délicat and sensible; ( 2 ) Those words relating to beneficient social qualities, such as généreux and charité ; ( 3 ) Vocabulary relating to the moral honesty of virtue, such as principes and conscience; (4) A vocabulary which describes virtue as being beyond the realms of the mundane world: ange, sacré, céleste. The use of words within this fourth classification imparts a ritual aspect to the concept of virtue, for Sadean heroines are always sacrificed with due c e r emony - on altars and before select groups. Through a ritual sacrifice of purity ( 2 ) the villain is able to dominate his environment. The active vice category contains many more verbs than the virtue categories. Many of the words are explicitly menacing and violent, e. g., piller, menacer, whereas others indicate moral shortcomings ( trahir, abandonner ). Words associated with active virtue are less redundant than those associated with persecuted virtue. Within the judgmental vice category, on the other hand, while certain words do occur with great frequency, the variety is not only far greater, but more words occur with greater frequency than in the other categories. The judgmental vice category conveys different degrees of vice and violence through an appeal to the sensations. Words a r e connected with fire and light (brûler, enflammer), with darkness (sombre),

47

and hardness ( b r o n z e ) . The words associated with violence differ f r o m those of active vice in that they e x p r e s s unbridled passions ( outragé, furieux, é g a r e r ). There is also a word grouping which revolves around one of the villain's m a j o r traits, cunning ( scélérat, politique, ruse, adroit ). Many of these words reflect two at f i r s t apparently contradictory notions: the notion of excess ( ivresse, faste, débauché, désordres, déchainter ), and the notion of containment ( sangfroid, severite, bronze ). Both notions, however, a r e necessary to the Sadean villain. The notion of excess c a r r i e s with it the ideas of violence and destruction, but in order to maintain oneself in a prolonged state of passion, control must be exercised; the passions must be regulated. From the list of descending o r d e r of frequency it became easy to ascertain what words occurred with approximately the same amount of frequency in each story, considering, of course, the total word count, which is roughly 85, 000 words for the six stories. The f o l lowing words have a tendency to occur most frequently in all of the stories studied: Persecuted Virtue

Active Virtue

Active Vice

Judgmental Vice

larmes malheureux désespoir infortune douleur

honnête honneur tendre sensible vertu

crime séduire vice faute faux torts

cruel affreux scélérat horreur passion plaisir perfide enflammer

There is, therefore, with only a few variations, a basic vocabulary that Sade u s e s over and over again. These r e c u r r i n g words a r e p a r t of the ingredients he pours into every story under study. There are, however, fewer repetitions of most frequently used vice words than the virtue words. This can be partially accounted for by the fact that t h e r e is usually a g r e a t e r variety of vice vocabulary than virtue vocabulary in each story, but the r e a l explanation must come in t e r m s of Sade's purpose in using an almost litany-like repetition of certain virtue words. In Dorgeville, for instance, the word malheureux, which is the most frequently used word in Sade's vocabulary, occurs 26 t i m e s ; in Eugénie de Franval, a work three times a s long, the same word occurs 53 times. Such constant repetition f o r c e s the r e a d e r to question the value of the concept itself. The repetitive quality of the moral epithets disassociates the language describing f r o m the object described. Because of this, and due to the multiple i n t e r pretations that the vocabulary offers, the language of Sade can be explained a s one whose t e r m s become the signifier r a t h e r than the signified. The necessity for this distinction in Sade becomes clear when we analyze the differences between the signifier and the signified in t e r m s of Sade's metaphorical u s e of language. All of Sade's moral

48

language is, to some extent, metaphorical. The villain in Sade, for instance, is always figuratively, if not always literally, an e x ecutioner. As Jacques Derrida explains in his analysis of metaphor in De la grammatologie: any metaphor is an inadequate designation of any passion, and it is this very inadequate designation, i. e . , the signified, the metaphor itself, which properly e x p r e s s e s the passion itself: "Et si je dis alors, ' J e vois des géants', cette fausse désignation s e r a une expression propre de ma p e u r " . ( 3 ) The signifier, deep fear, is conveyed through an inadequate metaphor, "the giants". Following and expanding upon D e r r i d a ' s line of argument, the more the metaphors accumulate, even though the metaphors a r e not a d equate designations of passions, the g r e a t e r the impact of the signifier, i. e . , the strength of the passion. The accumulation of m o r a l epithets in Sade, the overworking of the moral vocabulary creates, on one hand, exceptionally strong emotional reactions. On the other hand, by the very accumulation of these metaphors, the exception o r the extraordinary becomes the banal, and by dint of accumulation the words begin to mock themselves. While one tendency of Sade is to over-work much of his moral vocabulary, he also tends to use certain words only once in each story. These words a r e scattered at random throughout the text, but there is a tendency for them to appear at the end of a work, i m mediately before or a f t e r the last c r i m e has been committed. Often, too, a word will be used two or three t i m e s in the course of two o r three pages and will then be dropped entirely f r o m the text. Much of the vocabulary is used in these random clusters, which leads one to conclude that Sade attached little significance to his choice of terminology, and that the m o r a l vocabulary, used at random, s e r v e s only to embroider the c r i m e s and orgies. The value of such an approach, a s with the overuse of certain words, seems to lie not so much in the significance placed upon the individual word, but in the fact that Sade has created contrapuntal constructs, based upon the concept of a moral dualism, ( 4 ) to create a verbal explosion. As Barthes says of Sade, "Il ne s'agit pas de raconter, mais de r a c o n t e r que l'on raconte". ( 5 ) NOTES ( 1 ) Two words change categories with an amazing amount of f a cility. One is the word c r é a t u r e which changes f r o m the judgmental vice to the active virtue category. It is often used in the sense that Littré speaks of, "une femme dont on parle sans considération ou vine personne qui a été gagné par des bienfaits . . . " The other, m i s é rable, defined a s "qui est dans la m i s è r e ou dans le malheur", switches f r o m the persecuted virtue to the judgmental vice category. ( 2 ) In speaking of purity Sade said, "Ce qu'il y a de t e r r i b l e dans la pureté virginale, c ' e s t qu'elle me cache peut ê t r e ce par quoi elle m'échappe, suspecter sa pureté, n ' e s t - c e pas le plus sûr moyen de s'en a s s u r e r la possession? Non pas de telle femme, m a i s du s e c r e t de la p u r e t é ? " - P i e r r e Klossowski, Sade mon prochain

49 (Paris: aux Editions du Seuil, 1967), 150. ( 3 ) Jacques Derrida, De la grammatologie (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1967), 390. (4 ) "Sade est animé de ces deux évidences contradictoires: le mal n'existe pas et le mal est le seul critère de l'action, le mal est bon" (Brochier, 242 ). For a further discussion on the duality of good and evil in Sade see the Yale French Studies issue on The House of Sade, XXXV (Winter, 1965) and in particular Raymond Giraud's article, "The First Justine; On Good and Evil". ( 5 ) Barthes, 36.

5. THE TYPE-TOKEN RATIOS

METHODOLOGY The verbal data, when converted into ratios, made it possible to establish all dominant patterns, i. e . , r e c u r r i n g elements in Sade's m o r a l vocabulary. With the sender and r e c e i v e r combinations it became possible to see what types of vice and virtue the c h a r a c t e r s apply to themselves and in what proportions. All calculations were done with a view to establishing the mechanism of the verbal games and determining their importance. The four token and type categories were combined in two different ways in order to see t h e i r interrelationships. A ratio of total types to total frequencies was derived in o r d e r to see if Sade varied his repetition patterns. The ratio of tokens and types under each category was then worked out to see exactly how much quantitative variety of moral vocabulary existed. As the ratios w e r e done on a ten points scale, the higher the ratio under each of the individual token and type categories, the lower the quantity of virtue and vice. Under each of the four groupings for the tokens and types, however, the higher the numbers are, the g r e a t e r the quantity. The ratio of the entire token and type populations in relation to the total vocabulary was then established, a s well as the individual token and type groups. Working with the total sender and receiver combinations f r o m the quantitative data previously established, I reconverted the total number of types and their combinations to show exactly how many t i m e s virtue and vice speak and a r e spoken about within each work. These sender and r e c e i v e r combinations have been divided into four categories. The numbers for the six groupings under each category ( " N a r r a t o r " , "Virtue", and "Vice" under the sender and "General", "Virtue", and "Vice" under the r e c e i v e r ) were derived f r o m the combination totals f r o m the f i r s t groupings of tables presented. All the senders and r e c e i v e r s of each story were taken into consideration when composing the tables. This particular tabulations shows certain r e c u r r i n g elements that take place in vocabulary t r a n s f e r . After converting into r a t i o s all possible combinations of tokens, types, and proportions of virtue and vice s e n d e r / r e c e i v e r combinations, I established the minimum and maximum ratios f o r all possible combinations in the five s t o r i e s . This step showed the various degrees of s i m i l a r proportions that the combinations con-

51 tained. The results brought to light a surprisingly large number of recurring elements within the verbal constructs. THE RATIOS FOR THE FIVE TALES Faxelange In Faxelange the four token groupings have proportionally very similar relationships between them: 2 . 1 for persecuted virtue and 1. 8 for active virtue; 2. 0 for active vice and 1. 9 for judgmental vice. The difference between the two groups is . 3 in the first case and . 1 in the second. The difference between the totals for the two groups ( . 86 and . 85) is only . 01. The same difference exists between the other two combination totals, suggesting how eauqlly proportioned are the different varieties of moral vocabulary that Sade uses. The same type of similar proportions exists between the two type groups as between the two tokens ( . 5 and .73, .6 and . 8), the difference being . 2 in either case. The first page of tables that follows in Faxelange also shows the ratios existing between the foUr token and four type groupings. The proportions here, too, are very similar, the difference in the two token groups being .4 (1.5 and 1.1) and the two type groups . 2 (1.3 and 1.5). Faxelange

( 10,400 words )

Tokens persecuted virtue 83 2 . 1 active virtue 96 1. 8

86

persecuted virtue 83 2. 0 active vice 82 1. 0

179 total active vice judgmental vice

82 2. 0 86 1. 9

165 total , 85

active virtue judgmental vice

168 total Types persecuted virtue 21 2. 9 active virtue 40 1. 5 34 2.3 46 1. 7 80 total

96 1. 9 86 2. 0

1.1

182 total

5

persecuted virtue 21 2. 6 active vice 34 1.6

61 total active vice judgmental vice

1. 0

6

55 total 73

active virtue judgmental vice

40 2 . 1 46 1. 8 86 total

8

52

Tokens 83 97

persecuted virtue active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

180 total 82 86

active vice judgmental vice

83 82 165 total

^ q '

active virtue judgmental vice

168 total

96 86

^ ^

182 total

Types 21 40

persecuted virtue active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

61 total active vice judgmental vice

34 46

'

21 34 55 total

3

active virtue judgmental vice

80 total

40 46

^

g

86 total

Ratio of total types to total frequencies - 2 . 5 The next array of tables contains the ratios for all individual categories of tokens and types, as well as token and type groups, to the total vocabulary. The ratio of each token category to the total vocabulary, for example, is very similar, persecuted virtue, active and judgmental vice being the same (. 007), and active virtue a t . 008. The proportions between each token and type group to the total vocabulary are also very similar. For the groupings of persecuted virtue and active vice, active virtue and judgmental vice under the token and type groups, the difference is . 05 in the first case (. 014 and . 019) and . 003 in the second ( . 004 and . 007). Thus the proportions, although relatively small in relation to the total vocabulary, are fairly similar. Ratio of tokens to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

.007 .008 .007 .007

Ratio of types to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

.002 .003 .029 .004

53

Ratio of entire token population to the total vocabulary - . 03 Ratio of entire type population to the total vocabulary - . 01 Ratio of token group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice - . 014 active virtue and judgmental vice - . 019 persecuted virtue and active virtue - . 017 active vice and judgmental vice - . 016 Ratio of type group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice - . 004 active virtue and judgmental vice - . 007 persecuted virtue and active virtue - . 005 active vice and judgmental vice - . 007 The Sender and Receiver Combinations Sender- Persecuted Virtue

Receiver- Persecuted Virtue

N - 56 Virtue - 14 Vice - 6

General - 6 Virtue - 61 Vice - 9

76

76

Sender- Active Virtue

Receiver- Active Virtue

N - 67 Virtue - 17 Vice - 11

General - 19 Virtue - 58 Vice - 21

98

98

Sender- Active Vice

Receiver- Active Vice

N - 24 Virtue - 26 Vice - 33

General - 18 Virtue - 35 Vice - 30

83

83

Sender- Judgmental Vice

Receiver- Judgmental Vice

N - 46 Virtue - 25 Vice - 10

General - 22 Virtue - 30 Vice - 29

81

81

54

This schematic representation of the virtue and vice sender/receiver combinations helps us to see just to what extent role reversals occur within each work. Here, for instance, virtue speaks of itself in the language of persecuted virtue 14 times, but vice speaks of itself in this same language 6 times. Under the receiver lists virtue is labeled persecuted 61 times, but vice is spoken of a s persecuted virtue 9 times. Virtue is labeled in active vice terms 35 times, while vice is labeled in this language only 30 times. Virtue is also labeled in the language of judgmental vice more often than vice. The narrator speaks about virtue more often than he does vice (56, 67). Under the receiver category more remarks a r e directed to a general audience or an abstract concept than they are to the virtuous or vicious protaganist. There are also more remarks made about judgmental vice in general than there are about virtue.

Eugénie de Franval Like Faxelange, Eugénie de Franval has a similar distribution between the four token categories (2. 6 and 1. 5 in both cases). The type relationship, as in Faxelange, is proportionally closer between active and judgmental vice than between persecuted and active virtue. One might observe from this that Sade felt the necessity of balancing various aspects of vice, whereas the virtue words a r e apparently used more randomly. The ratios of the four token and type groupings, like the previous story, are also very similar, being 1.6 in the case of the tokens with a , 6 difference for the types. The ratio of total types to the total frequencies is 1. 5 smaller than in Faxelange, which means that repetition is proportionately greater in the latter. Eugénie de Franval ( 24, 120 words ) Tokens persecuted virtue active virtue

157 2.6 262 1.5

persecuted virtue active vice

419 total active vice judgmental vice

262 2 . 6

440 1.5

157 2.6 262 1.5 419 total

active virtue judgmental vice

702 total

262 2 . 6

440 1 . 5 702 total

Types persecuted virtue active virtue

27 3.7 .3 72 1,3 99 total

persecuted virtue active vice

27 3.4 71 1.3 98 total

55 active vice judgmental vice

71 2.4 108 1.6

.6

active virtue judgmental vice

72 3.8 108 2 . 5 280 total

179 total Tokens persecuted virtue active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

157 262

419 total

419 total active vice judgmental vice

262

440

1.6

157

262

active virtue judgmental vice

2 6 2

440

1 1

fi -6

702 total

702 total Types persecuted virtue active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

27 72

98 total

99 total 71

active vice judgmental vice

108

1. 8

27 71

active virtue judgmental vice

179 total

72

108

11 > 88

180 total

Ratio of total types to total frequencies- 4. 0 In the next array of tables the ratio of tokens and types to the total vocabulary differs from that of Faxelange. Active virtue and active vice have the same percentage of tokens in relation to the total vocabulary, whereas persecuted virtue is the smallest of the four categories and judgmental vice is the greatest. The ratio of types to the total vocabulary, like the tokens, is greater than in the preceding work. The ratio of the entire token population to the total vocabulary is . 01 greater than Faxelange, a minimal difference, whereas the ratio of the type population to the total vocabulary remains the same. In the token and type groups the ratios of persecuted virtue and active vice are smaller than active virtue and judgmental vice, as in Faxelange. Ratio of tokens to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. 141 .230 . 230 . 392

56

Ratio of types to the total vocabulaiy persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. . . .

024 064 063 096

Ratio of entire token population to the total vocabulary - . 04 Ratio of entire type population to the total vocabulary - . 01 Ratio of token group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice - .017 active virtue and judgmental vice - .029 persecuted virtue and active virtue active vice and judgmental vice

- . 017 - .029

Ratio of type group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 006 - . 007

persecuted virtue and active virtue active vice and judgmental vice

- . 004 - . 007

The Sender and Receiver Combinations Sender- Persecuted Virtue

Receiver- Persecuted Virtue

N Virtue Vice -

General Virtue Vice -

86 37 31 154 total

11 76 67 154 total

Sender- Active Virtue

Receiver- Active Virtue

N - 133 Virtue - 38 Vice - 77

General - 24 Virtue - 134 Vice - 90

248 total

248 total

Sender- Active Vice

Receiver- Active Vice

N Virtue Vice -

General - 49 Virtue - 42 Vice - 161

94 65 83 242 total

242 total

57

Sender- Judgmental Vice

Receiver- Judgmental Vice

N - 210 Virtue - 94 Vice - 110

General - 56 Virtue - 50 Vice - 300

414 total

414 total

In this work vice is spoken of in the language of persecuted virtue almost as often as virtue (76 to 67). This is unlike the preceding tale where vice was labeled as persecuted virtue only 9 times. Here, too, vice is labeled active and judgmental vice more often than virtue, whereas it is the reverse for the preceding work. Florville et Courval Although the total virtue token frequency is roughly equivalent to the total vice frequency, the distribution of ratios for each of the four categories is not. There is a proportionally much higher active virtue count than in all of the preceding works. The active virtue type groups is also much higher proportionally than in all the preceding works, whereas the active vice category has fewer types in relation to those of judgmental vice than the preceding works. Florville et Courval (16,640 words) Tokens persecuted virtue 166 2 4 ' active virtue 240 1.6

5

persecuted virtue 166 1 . 7 active vice 132 2 . 2

406 total active vice judgmental vice

298 total

132 3.0 271 1.4

-4

403 total

active virtue judgmental vice

240 2 . 1 271 1.8 809 total

Types persecuted virtue 25 3. 7 active virtue 68 3. 1

'

93 total active vice judgmental vice

44 3.0 89 1.4 133 total

.

persecuted virtue 25 3. 5 „ active vice 44 2. 0 * 89 total

'

persecuted virtue 68 2 . 1 judgmental vice 89 1. 7 " 157 total

58

Tokens persecuted virtue 166 active vice 132

persecuted virtue 166 active virtue 240

298 total

406 total active vice judgmental vice

132 271 "

gg

active virtue judgmental vice

403 total

240 1.7 271 511 total

Types persecuted virtue active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

25 68 93 total

active vice judgmental vice

25 44 89 total

active virtue judgmental vice 133 total

68 ^ 88 157 total

Unlike the distribution of token categories in the two preceding works, the active vice tokens, in relation to the total vocabulary, is the highest of the four classifications. The persecuted virtue types, in relation to their counterpart tokens, is also much lower than in the previous stories. The type population in relation to the total vocabulary, however, remains the same, whereas the difference in the token and type groups, as in other two works, is minimal. Ratio of tokens to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. 009 . 014 . 007 . 010

Ratio of types to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. 001 . 014 . 002 . 005

Ratio of entire token population to the total vocabulary - . 04 Ratio of entire type population to the total vocabulary - . 01 Ratio of token group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 017 - . 031

59

persecuted virtue and active virtue active vice and judgmental vice

- .023 - . 020

Ratio of type group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 005 - . 009

persecuted virtue and active virtue active vice and judgmental vice

- . 005 - .008

The Sender and Receiver Combinations Sender- Persecuted Virtue N Virtue Vice

21 113 34

Receiver- Persecuted Virtue General - 31 88 Virtue 49 Vice

168 total

168 total

Sender- Active Virtue

Receiver- Active Virtue

N - 33 Virtue - 175 Vice - 33

General - 54 Virtue - 161 Vice - 26

241 total

241 total

Sender- Active Vice

Receiver- Active Vice

N 6 Virtue - 106 Vice - 23

General Virtue Vice -

135 total

30 39 67 136 total

Sender- Judgmental Vice

Receiver- Judgmental Vice

N - 33 Virtue - 193 Vice - 29

General Virtue Vice -

255 total

97 67 91 255 total

As in Eugénie de Franval, the number of times that vice is labeled as persecuted virtue in relation to the number of times that virtue is labeled in the same manner is over fifty percent. Likewise, virtue is spoken of in the language of active and judgmental vice over half the number of times that vice is spoken of in this manner.

60

Dorgeville The ratios for the first set of token categories in Dorgeville, like Faxelange and Eugénie de Franval, are very similar, the difference being 2.2 between both of the first individual token groups. The active and judgmental vice type group are similar in proportions to the three preceding works, being 1+ to 2+ or 3+, but the persecuted and active virtue group differs considerably from the others. Here the persecuted virtue types are fewer than in all the other works studied. As the active virtue 1ype group is similar to all of the other works ( 1+ ), the difference between the persecuted and active virtue groups is greater than all the other works (. 4 ). The ratio of total types to the total frequencies is almost the same as Faxelange, which means that Sade uses approximately the same amount of vocabulary repetition in these works as he has types of words. A comparison of the token group ratios shows that the same approximate proportions are maintained as in all the preceding works. Dorgeville (8, 300 words) Tokens persecuted virtue 45 4. 2 active virtue 75 2.2

.3

persecuted virtue active vice

judgmental vice

73 2. 7 125 1. 5

.6

active virtue judgmental vice

Types persecuted virtue 8 5.0 active virtue 33 1. 0 *

3

persecuted virtue active vice

41 total 27 3.2 61 1. 4 88 total

3

75 2.0 125 1. 0

.6

200 total

198 total

active vice judgmental vice

'

118 total

120 total active vice

45 2.6 73 1.6

8 4.0 27 1.2

'

2

35 total 1.8

active virtue judgmental vice

33 2. 7 61 1. 5 94 total

.7

61

Tokens persecuted virtue active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

45 75

118 total

120 total active vice judgmental vice

73

125

i1 «6 -

45 73

active virtue judgmental vice

75 1.6 125 200 total

198 total TVpes persecuted virtue active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

33

35 total

41 total active vice judgmental vice

2¿ 1L

27

61

'

8

27

active virtue judgmental vice

33 2.6 61 94 total

88 total Ratio of total types to total frequencies- 2.4 Ratio of tokens to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. . . .

005 009 008 023

Ratio of types to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. . . .

0009 003 003 007

Ratio of entire token population to the total vocabulary- . 01 Ratio of entire type population to the total vocabulary- . 03 Ratio of token group to the total vocabulaiy persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 014 - . 024

persecuted virtue and active virtue - . 014 active vice and judgmental vice - . 023 Ratio of type group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 004 - . 011

62

persecuted virtue and active virtue - . 004 active vice and judgmental vice - . 010 The four token and type groups in relation to the total vocabulary have roughly the same distribution as Eugénie de Fran vai. The active virtue and active vice groups are proportionally close together whereas persecuted virtue has the smallest ratio and judgmental vice the largest. There is also a very similar ratio in the relationship of the token groups to the total vocabulary, the difference being . 006 between the two virtue and two vice groups (. 004 and . 011 ) and . 005 between the other two combinations. The Sender and Receiver Combinations Sender- Persecuted Virtue

Receiver- Persecuted Virtue

N - 24 Virtue - 9 Vice - 12

General Virtue Vice

45 total

6

17

22

45 total

Sender- Active Virtue

Receiver- Active Virtue

N - 53 Virtue - 13 Vice - 9

General Virtue Vice

75 total

- 11 - 41 - 23 75 total

Sender- Active Vice

Receiver- Active Vice

N - 18 Virtue - 33 Vice - 23

General Virtue Vice

74 total

- 21 - 3 - 50 74 total

Sender- Judgmental Vice

Receiver- Judgmental Vice

N - 48 Virtue - 44 Vice - 31

General Virtue Vice

123 total

- 24 - 30 - 69 123 total

Although the same phenomenon of vocabulary transfer occurs in this work as in the others, the proportion of virtue and vice receivers under each category differs considerably. Here, for instance, virtue is only spoken of in the language of active vice 3 times as compared to 30 or 40 times in the 3 other works. Like all

63

of the other works studied, with the exception of Florville et Courval, the narrator speaks of virtue more often than either virtue or vice speaks of virtue. La Comtesse de Sancerre In La Comtesse de Sancerre the virtue token groups are approximately equal (1. 8 and 2. 0 ), but their type counterparts are not. This same phenomenon holds true for Faxelange. Under the first type grouping, like in all previous works, the active vice category has fewer types than active virtue, although active virtue tokens are usually lower than those of active vice, as they are here. The a c tive vice words are thus repeated more often than those of active virtue. The ratio of types to total frequencies is approximately the same as that of Dorgeville and Faxelange. In all three cases, therefore, independent of the stories' length, Sade uses approximately the same quantitative variety of vocabulary words. La Comtesse de Sancerre ( 8, 640 words ) Tokens persecuted virtue active virtue

73 1. 8 68 2.0

.3

persecuted virtue active vice

.5

161 total

141 total active vice judgmental vice

73 2.2

88 1 . 8

active virtue judgmental vice

88 2.6

142 1. 7

68 1.7 42 . 8

.4

110 total

230 total Types persecuted virtue active virtue

18 2 . 9 33 1.6

.3

persecuted virtue active vice

28 4. 7 53 2.4

.6

active virtue judgmental vice

33 4 . 0 53 2 . 5 86 total

81 total Tokens persecuted virtue active virtue

73 68

persecuted virtue active vice

141 total active vice judgmental vice

88

142

' '

230 total

3

46 total

51 total active vice judgmental vice

18 2. 5 28 1.6

73

88

161 total active virtue judgmental vice

68

142

, „ 1

'á

210 total

.6

64

Types persecuted virtue active virtue

18

33

persecuted virtue active vice

46 total

51 total active vice judgmental vice

28 ^ g 53 '

18 28

active virtue judgmental vice 86 total

81 total Ratio of tokens to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

.008

. 007 . 009 . 016

Ratio of types to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

.002

. 003 . 003 - . 006

Ratio of entire token population to the total vocabulary- . 04 Ratio of entire type population to the total vocabulary- . 01 Ratio of token group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 017 - . 012

persecuted virtue and active virtue - . 016 active vice and judgmental vice - . 026 Ratio of type group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 005 - . 009

persecuted virtue and active virtue active vice and judgmental vice

- . 005 - . 009

The ratios of token distribution to the total vocabulary are unlike any of the previous stories in that the persecuted virtue category is greater than that of active virtue. The persecuted virtue types, however, like the four previous stories, are less than those of active virtue. Like Porge ville, Faxelange, and Eugénie de Franval, the active virtue and active vice type groups are approximately the same. As in all other works, the ratio of the two sets of type groups to

65

the total vocabulary are more proportionately equal than their token counterparts. The Sender and Receiver Combinations Sender- Persecuted Virtue

Receiver- Persecuted Virtue

N Virtue Vice

General Virtue Vice

-

33 21 20

-

-

74 total Sender- Active Virtue 27

N Virtue Vice

22

19

2

64 74 total

Receiver- Active Virtue General Virtue Vice

9 45 14

68 total

68 total

Sender- Active Vice

Receiver- Active Vice

N Virtue Vice

General Virtue Vice

-

25 24 36

-

5 43 37 85 total

85 total Sender- Judgmental Vice

Receiver- Judgmental Vice

N Virtue Vice

General Virtue Vice

- 62 - 41 - 40 143 total

-

9 66 68 143 total

Once again, as in all other stories with the exception of Florville et Courval, the narrator speaks of virtue and vice more often than the protagonists. Here, as in Faxelange, virtue is labeled as judgmental vice more often than vice is labeled in that way. On the other hand, as in Faxelange once again, vice is labeled as virtue less frequently than in the other works. THE FIVE TALES: A SYNOPSIS As can be seen from the token-type ratios, all five works show c e r tain recurring elements in their use of moral vocabulary. Faxelange has a fairly equal distribution of tokens in each of the four categories (2.1, 1. 8; 2. 0, 1. 9). Eugénie de Franval and Dorgeville have roughly the same number of active virtue and active vice tokens

66

(262 for both categories in the f o r m e r ; 75 and 73 respectively in the latter), whereas the persecuted virtue category is the smallest of the four categories and judgmental vice is the largest. Within the type groups we find that active virtue has a higher percentage i. e . , a lower ratio, of words to active vice in all stories with the exception of Florville et Courval ( 1+ for active virtue v e r sus 2+, 3+ or 4+ for active vice). A comparison of the figures for the combined virtue and vice token groups shows that the largest difference in proportions is in Eugénie de Franval, where the virtue grouping is . 5 and the vice grouping .1, a . 4 difference which on a 1. 0 maximum scale is considerable. The difference between the two groups in Porge ville is . 3, in La Comtesse de Sancerre . 2, and in Faxelange and F l o r ville et Courval the ratios a r e approximately the same. The d i f f e r ence in the type groupings is smaller than those of the tokens. Faxelange has a difference of only . 2 (. 5 and . 7 respectively), Eugénie de Franval and La Comtesse de Sancerre of . 3 ( both works a r e . 3 and . 6 ), Florville et Courval of . 1 and Dorgeville of 1. 2. The fact that the type groups have a smaller difference than the tokens shows that Sade was probably more concerned with word variety than with the quantity of 'well placed' repetitions. The repetitions, a s noted in the vocabulary section, a r e often used at random. While there is no r e c u r r i n g pattern for all five stories in the ratio of tokens to the total vocabulary, t h e r e is f o r the types. With the exception of Florville et Courval, all of the other works have approximately the same proportion of active virtue and active vice types. Dorgeville and Faxelange both have the greatest amount of vocabulary variety f o r the length of the stories ( . 01 versus . 04 for the other t h r e e w o r k s ) . All the tales, with the exception of Dorgeville, have the same ratio of type population to the total vocabulary (. 01 v e r s u s . 03 f o r Dorgeville ). It now r e m a i n s to be seen what r e c u r r i n g patterns and random elements exist within the works and the reasons for them. The e s t a b lishing of minimum-maximum ratios facilitate our seeing what p a t t e r n s emerge f r o m the verbal data. MINIMUM-MAXIMUM RATIOS In order to see the total spectrum of quantitative variety f o r all p o s s ible combinations within the previous a r r a y s of tables, the minimum and maximum ratios f o r all five s t o r i e s were established. These minimum and maximum r a t i o s indicate the lowest and the highest variance f o r all combinations. In the f i r s t two columns the smaller r a t i o s indicate a l a r g e r frequency, and in the last two the l a r g e r number indicates the g r e a t e r frequency. The following table illustrates to what extent Sade u s e s a relatively unvarying proportion of moral vocabulary for each work.

67

Minimum-Maximum Ratios Maximum

Minimum

persecuted virtue active virtue

Tokens

2.1 1. 5

5.0 5.4

active vice judgmental vice

2. 0

4.2

persecuted virtue active vice

1. 7 1.5

active virtue judgmental vice

1.9 1. 0

5. 0 5.4 4.2 2.0

1.4

Minimum

Maximum 86

,85

2. 0

Types persecuted virtue active virtue

2. 9 4. 0

.3

.5

active vice judgmental vice

1. 0 1.0 2.3 1.4

4. 7 2.4

.1

.73

persecuted virtue active vice

2.6 1.2

4.0 2.0

.2

.6

active virtue judgmental vice

2.1 1. 5

4.0 2.5

.2

Ratio of token group to total vocabulary - varies Ratio of type group to total vocabulary - stable between all combinations, including each of four categories to each other. Tokens Persecuted virtue and active virtue to active vice and judgmental vice: Maximum

Minimum

1.7

.99

Persecuted virtue and active vice to active virtue and judgmental vice: Maximum

Minimum

1.1

1.6

Types Persecuted virtue and active virtue to active vice and judgmental vice: Maximum

Minimum

2.1

1.3

68

Persecuted virtue and active vice to active virtue and judgmental vice: Maximum

Minimum

2.6

.8

Ratio of entire token population to the entire vocabulary: Maximum

Minimum

.1

.4

Ratio of entire type population to the entire vocabulary: Maximum

Minimum

.1

.3

Ratio of total types to the total frequencies: Maximum

Minimum

2.4

4.0

The maximum ratio for each token and type category varies only in the quantity of 2+ to 1+; the minimum ratios only in the quantities of 5+ to 5+, or 4+ to 2+. The largest variance for all other possible combinations is 1. 6 in the case of persecuted virtue and active vice types to active virtue and judgmental vice (maximum 2. 6, minimum . 8). All other combinations have considerable less variance. It is through the use of these general, relatively stable, patterns that we can begin to explain Sade's style and his plot and character development. RECURRING PATTERNS AND RANDOM USAGE The calculations yielded a large number of recurring patterns: There is a recurring pattern between the token population of persecuted and active virtue (2. + to 1. + or 4. + to 2. + ), the vocabulary of active virtue being roughly double that of persecuted virtue in three out of the five stories. This pattern does not hold true for Faxelange and La Comtesse de Saneerre, although these two works do have a similar pattern between the two token categories ( 2 . 1 to 1.5 and 5.4 to 5. 0). Active and judgmental vice tokens also have a proportionately equal pattern, being either 2.+ to 1.+, 4.+ to 2.+, or 3.+ to 1.+. The only story not having this recurring pattern in this particular combination is Faxelange, yet this work does have a recurring pattern between the two groups of persecuted and active virtue and active and judgmental vice. An equal proportioning of tokens also exists between the combinations of the two groups in all but two stories: Florville et Cour-

69

vai and La Comtesse de Sancerre. The other two token combinations, that of persecuted virtue and active vice, active virtue and judgmental vice, vary. No r e c u r r i n g pattern is evident except f o r the fact that these two combinations a r e proportionately closer together than their counterparts. The relationship between persecuted virtue and active virtue under the type population shows no r e c u r r i n g pattern. The proportions b e tween the active and judgmental vice types, however, a r e equally distributed in three out of five works. They vary in 3. + to 1. +, 2. + to 1. + or 4. + to 2. +. These type categories have the same ratios a s their token counterparts. Faxelange and Eugénie de Franval a r e the exceptions here, but both of these works have higher ratios of vice to virtue than any of the others. The other two combinations vary, but again, like their token counterparts, they a r e proportionately closer than the other two combinations. The token relationship between the four categories in Eugénie de Franval, Dorgeville, and Faxelange is equally distributed, but not in the other two works. In the type relationship among the four categories the virtue types a r e roughly one half the vice types in Eugénie de Franval, Dorgeville, and La Comtesse de Sancerre, and approximately two thirds in the other two works. The ratio of total tokens to the total vocabulary is fairly evenly distributed, either . 03 or . 04, with the exception of Dorgeville, which is . 01. The proportion of the total type population to the total vocabulary is also similar in all stories (. 01 ), again with the exception of Dorgeville, where it is . 03. The ratio of total types to total frequencies ( i. e . , of the token population ) varies between 2.4 and 4. 0 for all five stories. The ratio of each individual token category to the total vocabulary changes, the only r e c u r r i n g elements being that persecuted virtue is always proportionally l e s s o r the same a s judgmental vice, and that the judgmental vice category is always the same o r m o r e than that of active vice. The other two categories vary. The ratios in the individual type categories to the total vocabulary vary in much the same way as the individual token categories to the total vocabulary, persecuted virtue being again the same o r l e s s than judgmental vice. The ratios between active virtue and active vice, however, a r e very close, with the exception of Fior ville et Courval. In Florville et Courval, Faxelange and Dorgeville, active virtue types run roughly one half of the total vice types, and one third in the other two works. Persecuted virtue types a r e between one half and one third of those of active vice. Judgmental vice types a r e one half to three q u a r t e r s m o r e than active vice types, except in Dorgeville, where active vice is l e s s than half that of judgmental vice. In all stories except La Comtesse de Sancerre, persecuted virtue tokens a r e lower than that of active vice. Active virtue tokens run roughly parallel to those of active vice in Faxelange, Eugénie de Franval, and Dorgeville. In Florville et Courval the active virtue tokens a r e considerably higher than active vice tokens, and in La Comtesse de Sancerre they a r e considerably lower. Four stories

70

have a higher frequency of judgmental vice than active vice. The fifth, Faxelange, has a slightly lower frequency. In three of the five works, all virtue tokens a r e a little m o r e than half of all vice tokens. Faxelange and Florville et Courval, however, each have a few m o r e virtue tokens than vice. Another phenomenon related to the use of tokens is that as p e r secuted virtue tokens increase in proportion to the r e s t of the moral vocabulary, judgmental vice tokens have a tendency to decrease, a s in Faxelange. There is also a very stable relationship between the four total token and type combination proportions, varying only between . 99 to 1. 7 f o r the tokens and 2. 6 to 1. 3 f o r the types. When a comparison is made with the dominant patterns of v i r t u e / vice tokens and types, an interesting tendency r e s u l t s : In four out of five stories there a r e roughly five times the number of persecuted virtue tokens as persecuted virtue types. Three out of five works have four t i m e s the number of active virtue tokens a s active virtue types. In t h r e e out of five there a r e t h r e e t i m e s the number of a c tive vice tokens a s types, the other two stories being two and four t i m e s the number of tokens a s types in the judgmental vice c l a s s i fication. This pattern shows an increase in the number of types of words moving f r o m the persecuted virtue category to judgmental vice, and a decrease in the proportional use of tokens to types. In the three sender and the t h r e e r e c e i v e r breakdowns ( s e e pages 54, 57/58, 60, 63 and 66) the general tendency, in all works except Faxelange, is for vice to label itself a s vice with slightly more f r e quency than virtue labels vice a s vice. Under the receiver combinations virtue is called vice at least half the number of time that vice is called vice. In Florville et Courval, for instance, vice labels itself a s vice 91 times, and virtue labels itself a s vice 67 t i m e s . On the other hand, the n a r r a t o r will call vice vice m o r e often than he will call virtue vice. This attitude t i e s in with the moral stance that the n a r r a t o r purports to take; he is obliged to give lip-service to virtue, whereas his vicious c h a r a c t e r s a r e not. It r e m a i n s to be seen how this t r a n s f e r of vocabulary is fully e f fected by the n a r r a t o r and c h a r a c t e r s , what its import is and what purpose the r e c u r r i n g patterns and random elements serve in the structuring of the stories.

6. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NORMS AND THEIR DEVIATIONS

The quantitative data and the calculation results illustrate how the concepts of vice and virtue in Sade are based on a limited vocabulary which, within the moral concepts, contains a great deal of variety. This quantitative variety is set forth in various combinations within each story, but, as the calculation results show, there are few variations on the ways in which the vocabulary patterns are constructed. The reasons for the stability of certain vocabulary patterns and the nonstability of others need to be explored. Within the stable and unstable token combinations a stable r e lationship exists between persecuted and active virtue in all stories except Faxelange and La Comtesse de Sancerre. These are the only two works studied in which the number of senders and receivers are not evenly balanced. Each story has only one main sender of vice and two receivers of virtue, which gives Faxelange and La Comtesse de Sancerre a proportionally higher ratio of the two virtue categories to the two vice categories. The quantity of the vocabulary can therefore vary in proportion to the number of senders and receivers of vice and virtue. It is as though each type of character is worth only a certain quantity and a certain variety of words and nothing more. The fact that there is also the same quantitative difference between the active and judgmental vice tokens lends additional support to the hypothesis. Faxelange is the only story that does not have a stable relationship between the two token vice categories. These two combinations are veiy similar, the judgmental vice tokens being only slightly higher than the active vice. This is due to the nature of the descriptions in the work, which in the second half of thè story, are given over to exposing one criminal act after another. It is not a question here of describing various aspects of the villain's wickedness. The same proportions of word distribution also exists in this work between the two virtue categories. The roughly equal numbers of vice and virtue tokens are balanced by the manner of exposition the story takes. The virtuous characteristics of the heroine are described in the first half of the work and the vicious acts of the villain in the second. The distribution of the vice and virtue motifs are exposed in two large alternating blocks of text. In La Comtesse de Sancerre, on the other hand, judgmental vice has many more occurrences than in the other three categories. The much higher proportion of judgmental vice relative to the other three classifications is much more typical than the combinations found in Faxelange. In La Com-

72

t e s s e de Sancerre it is not a matter of exposing one bloody m u r d e r a f t e r another, a s in Faxelange, but r a t h e r the development of all facets of evil and the growing passion within the Countess. There is a cunning in the Countess which does not exist in the villain of F a x e lange, who, in spite of the fact that he commits m u r d e r s , has seve r a l commendable qualities, unlike the Countess, who has no single virtue to recommend her. This difference in character portrayal is reflected in the proportions of moral vocabulary devoted to each villain. The r e c u r r i n g patterns in the relationships can thus be explained in t e r m s of the type and number of senders for each category, but the dynamics of the relationships between the four classifications must also be understood in t e r m s of the persistent use of certain vocabulary words in unvarying quantities within each work. Mention has already been made of the words that appear most often within each story, the same words usually appearing with the highest f r e quency in each work. There a r e also, however, words which appear only once o r twice in the works studied, but reappear in most if not all of them: e. g., plainte and supplice in the persecuted virtue category, s a c r é and retenue under active virtue, tuer under active vice and ruse under judgmental vice. This use of certain quantities f o r select words also adds to the proportionately equal distribution b e tween the token relationships. The story Florville et Courval deviates f r o m the r e c u r r i n g p a t t e r n s existing between the token combinations. Here the persecuted virtue category is considerably higher than that of active vice. This is because the main body of the story, like Justine, is narrated by the ever persecuted virtuous heroine. Because it is narrated in the f i r s t person and virtue is constantly excusing, explaining, describing and above all lamenting, the virtue categories a r e proportionally higher than the vice categories in the other stories. There is also only one main sender of virtue in the work, Florville herself, wherea s the many r e c e i v e r s of vice and virtue throughout the work a r e divided into equal numbers, for Florville is, like Justine, a r e v e r s e Candide ; in every incident where she actively seeks out virtue she unwittingly but inevitably encounters only vice. This technique of "one vice for one virtue incident" is used both stylistically and thematically in varying ways throughout each of Sade's stories, but this one to one correlation, which helps to equally distribute the token combinations, does exist in all of them. The other two token combinations have no real r e c u r r i n g patterns. Yet the fact that they a r e proportionately closer together than the two virtue and the two vice groupings shows to what extent these four categories a r e linked together. The greatest difference in this second grouping of the categories is 1 . 1 in Eugénie de Franval between p e r secuted virtue and active vice. Between the two virtue and the two vice combinations the proportions a r e f a r t h e r apart, the largest difference being 2. 0. The linking of persecuted virtue and active vice, active virtue and judgmental vice a r e natural associations f o r the r e a d e r to make. The p e r p e t r a t o r of a c r i m e m a k e s his victim suffer, and if one does not adhere to the accepted moral codes of honesty, charity, and the like, he is judged to be wicked. These particular

73

associations are the springboard for the development and amplification of Sade's moral vocabulary. The persecuted virtue and active virtue type classifications, unlike their token counterparts, are used randomly. Sade varies the amount of persecuted virtue to active virtue between one fifth to seven eighths. The quantity of persecuted virtue is closely dependent on the type of ending in each work. The lower the persecuted virtue category, the more surprises Sade reserves for the climax. In Florville et Courval, Eugénie de Fran vai, and Porge ville, there is a considerably lower rate of persecuted virtue types to active than in the other three stories. Each of these works reserves the most dramatic moments until the very end, at which point they come tumbling down one on top of another. Within a few paragraphs, we learn that Florville has married her father, killed one brother, had a child by the second, and condemned her own mother to death. In a few pages we learn that Franval is persecuted, destitute, and that his daughter has committed suicide after having killed his wife. In one long speech at the end of Dorgeville the reader learns that the unsuspecting Dorgeville has married a sister of his who had spent her life committing one criminal act after another. When the full fate of the virtuous hero or heroine is not revealed until the end, the persecuted virtue category must necessarily be lower than that of active virtue, for both the characters and the reader do not know until the finish to what extent virtue is being persecuted. The two vice categories, like their token counterparts, are similar, Faxelange and Eugénie de Franval being proportionally the most similar of all the works, each one having a higher ratto of active to judgmental vice than the others. In these two stories, where there are many more types of vicious words used than in any of the others, it is interesting to note that these are the only two works studied in which the principal evil character is a male, the role of the dominating male obviously inspiring Sade's imagination. These two works also portray the build-up of vice in a more explicitly than implicitly threatening manner, as in the other three stories. Thus the moral vocabulary that Sade employs changes according to the exigencies of the plot, the amount and type of evil he ascribes to the villains, and the narrative point of view. The greater the number of murders, the lower the proportion of judgmental vice; the more emphasis placed on the vicious character's plotting and cunningness, the higher the proportion of verbalized judgmental vice. When the work is narrated from virtue's point of view instead of from that of a semi-omniscent narrator, the higher the proportion of virtue to vice. When comparing type relationships between the four categories, virtue types occur with only half the frequency of the vice types in Eugénie de Franval, Dorgeville, and La Comtesse de Sancerre, and approximately two thirds that of vice in Florville et Courval and Faxelange. These last two stories have similar plot development in that there is a continual series of tests being placed upon virtue. The virtuous heroines of both works are forced to commit crimes. Mademoiselle de Faxelange kills in the name of self-preservation

74

and Florville unknowingly commits criminal acts. All virtuous characters become enmeshed to some extent in crime, but whenever the crimes are constantly repeated or new ones are added upon old, the proportion of virtue to vice increases. The relationship of the total tokens to the total vocabulary, with the exception of Porge ville, is a stable one. Dorgeville has p r o portionally fewer vocabulary words that apply to vice and virtue than in the other works. The plot develops in the same manner as a mystery story. Outside of a few veiled insinuations by the narrator on the evilness of Dorgeville's wife, Cécile, the mystery of her background is withheld until the very end, at which point her entire past actions and future plans are revealed in one long discourse. Since the reader does not learn the true extent of her acts until the end, the vocabulary repetition is kept to a minimum. Yet as Cécile has committed or attempted to commit a large variety of crimes, the vice vocabulary in terms of variety is not proportionally smaller than the other stories. The persecuted virtue vocabulary, however, is, for it is not until the end that Dorgeville learns to what extent he has been duped, and not until the closing speech by the narrator does the reader learn of Dorgeville's fate and unhappiness. It is because of this particular type of surprise ending that the ratio of the type population to the total vocabulary is larger than in the other works. The minimum-maximum ratios for the total types in relation to the total frequencies a r e 2.4 and 4. 0, a difference of only 1. 6. This particular figure shows that Sade uses, in all stories studied, roughly the same amount of verbal variety in relation to their repetitions, just as there is roughly the same number of types in proportion to the total vocabulary of each story. These unvarying quantitative ratios lend an unbending rigidity to character portrayal and thematic development. The ratios of each individual token category to the total vocabulary varies, although not considerably, depending on how the plot is structured. Dorgeville, for instance, has a higher proportion of active to persecuted virtue than in any of the other works. The entire story centers around Dorgeville's goodness, and in conjunction with this his innocence and blindness which will eventually cause him to be duped. If he had not been so charitable, he obviously would not have met with so much unhappiness. Likewise, the stories vary according to whether primary emphasis is placed on the wickedness of the main character, as in La Comtesse de Sancerre where there is less active virtue and proportionally more vice, or whether more emphasis is placed on their goodness and their eventual complicity in crime. Under the individual tokens the judgmental vice category is always in the same proportion or more than active vice in relation to the total vocabulary of a story. The repetition of descriptive epithets and moral condemnations are thus more important in the construction of the total story than the analysis and descriptions of actual crimes. To make a crime fascinating, the villain must be labeled wicked; the greater the degree of wickedness, the more fascinating the villain and the more judgmental vice tags he receives. If, hypothetically, Sade had used a consistently greater quantity of active vice than judg-

75

mental vice, the wickedness of the villain would not be brought to the foreground and the reader would be left with a banal, repetitive catalogue of crimes. All questions of morality, passion, and pleasure would disappear. By using the judgmental vice vocabulary in such great quantities, however, it is not the actual crime itself that becomes the center of interest, but rather the passions of the persons committing the crimes. It is not necessarily the crime itself that counts, but the possibilities and the import of the crime. The four individual type categories, when compared to the total vocabulary, vary in the same manner as the individual token categories. Active virtue and active vice are, however, proportionally closer in the type categories than in the tokens, with the exception of Florville et Courval, in which active virtue is considerably higher than active vice. The reader does not discover until the end of the work that all of the virtuous acts that Florville accomplishes are, in reality, criminal ones. The active virtue and the active types, being proportionally so similar in all the works, become the two constants in Sade's moral vocabulary. The active virtue types are one half of the total vice vocabulary types in Florville et Courval, Faxelange, and Porge ville, two thirds in La Comtesse de Sancerre and Eugénie de Franval. In the first three stories the central figures a r e the persecuted hero or heroine; in the last two, the principal center of interest is the degree of evilness of the villain. The villains are the most wicked and the most intelligent of all the stories studied, and the greater the dosage of wickedness, the greater the necessity for describing more virtue, as the degrees of wickedness must necessarily correspond to the degrees of virtue. The persecuted virtue types are one half to one third those of active vice. If there were too little variety in the description of persecuted virtue, the heroines would be no better than puppets. The judgmental vice types are one half to three quarters more than active vice types, for Sade's primary interest, it now emerges, lies in the moral significance and ramifications of the criminal acts and not in the acts themselves. Four stories, with the exception of Faxelange, have a higher f r e quency of judgmental vice than active vice. In Faxelange more emphasis is placed on overt crimes than on the vicious qualities of the protagonist. In three of the five stories the combined virtue tokens are a little more than one half of the combined vice tokens. Faxelange and Florville et Courval both have a slightly higher frequency of combined virtue tokens than combined vice tokens. Both of these works expose at great length the merits of virtue before they expose vice. When the persecuted virtue tokens increase, the judgmental vice tokens have a tendency to decrease, as in Faxelange, where the number of persecuted virtue and judgmental vice tokens is about the same, unlike in other works where the judgmental vice tokens a r e so much higher than those of persecuted virtue. These tendencies, however, do not hold true for the types. The persecuted virtue types in Faxelange, for instance, remain half that of judgmental vice. On

76

the other hand, when persecuted virtue tokens tend to decrease in proportion to the other three categories, judgmental vice tokens have a tendency to increase, as in Eugénie de Franval. Here, however, the types also tend to decrease proportionally; persecuted virtue being only one quarter of judgmental vice. This is probably due to the more limited nature of the persecuted virtue vocabulaiy which cannot vary beyond a certain point. The proportionally similar relationship between the four total token combinations varies less than the type combinations. This means that in the interplay between the four categories the dosage is kept relatively the same; the variety of the words changing a c cording to whether the author places his emphasis on the virtuousness of the heroine, in which case we find a higher percentage of virtue words, as in Florville et Courval, or on the evilness of the villain. In the stable relationships of the sender/receiver combinations the narrator will call vice vice more often than he will call virtue vice. He will not usually r e f e r directly to a virtuous character as having vicious characteristics; more often this sort of statement will come from one of the characters. The praise of virtue and condemnation of vice on the part of the narrator is a natural part of his rhetorical stance. These stories are written, as he tells the reader at the beginning of Eugénie de Franval, to instruct. It is perhaps noteworthy that he omits the words "to please", for while the stories might be morally instructive, they are not necessarily morally constructive in the traditional sense. The omission seems to be of deliberate, ironic intent. Yet the narrator himself will take certain words that he consistently uses in association with the personalities of the vicious charact e r s and apply then to the actions and attitudes of the virtuous heros. The words which he ascribes to virtue after having made them a part of the villain's character are generally words which relate to some idea of passions, e. g., feu, embraser, jouissance and désirs. Madame de Franval, for instance, shows affection to her wicked husband, whom she loves in spite of his crimes, with des caresses . brûlantes. This rather subtle transfer of vocabulary effected by the narrator causes virtue to assimilate vice, so that not only are the actions of the vicious characters emulated by virtue, but the very personality attributes of the vicious characters a r e absorbed by the virtuous ones. The vicious villains will often refer to themselves as being virtuous with as much if not more frequency than they refer to the virtue of the virtuous characters. In Faxelange, for instance, the wicked Franlo speaks of himself in the language of persecuted virtue 5 times, and 4 times in the active virtue language. He speaks of himself in the language of active vice 11 times and in that of judgmental vice 4 times. But he also speaks of the virtuous Mademoiselle de Faxelange in vicious language 7 times. In the receiver lists for the sender/receiver combinations, virtue generally receives more virtue vocabulary under the two virtue categories than vice, but vice will often receive a healthy dosage. In Florville et Courval, for instance, virtue is labeled as persecuted

77

88 times, but vice is also labeled as persecuted 49 times. One of the most common persecuted virtue words ascribed to vice is malheureux, the same word which is the most frequently repeated for the virtue characters. Under the receiver category for active virtue, virtue has 161 occurrences; vice, 126. Under the receiver vice categories the proportions, as one would expect, are usually inverted, vice receiving more vicious epithets than virtue. In Florville et Courval virtue is labeled active vice 39 times, while there are 67 occurrences of vice under the active vice classification. Virtue is labeled as judgmental vice 67 times, vice 91 times. The two exceptions to this reversal of proportions are Faxelange and La Comtesse de Sancerre. In Faxelange there are about the same proportions of receivers of virtue and vice in the two vice categories, the proportions being roughly equivalent to the token proportions, and in La Comtesse de Sancerre virtue receives more active vice than vice does. These sender/receiver combinations involving vocabulary t r a n s fer do not have any recurring patterns. The number of times that vice is called virtue and virtue vice varies with each tale. Thus while the elements themselves are randomly used, they are uniformly variable. The same recurring elements among the tokens, types, and sender/ receiver combinations indicated that Sade constructs not only his character types, but his vocabulary and speech patterns in an almost mathematically precise mold. This has been found to be true, at least, for the five stories under study. To see whether the same phenomena hold true in the same ways, a sixth story, Miss Henriette Stralson, was analyzed to discover if the probability of the hypotheses could be increased. The following chapter describes the results of that study.

THE VERBAL DATA: MISS HENRIETTA STRALSON

The same quantitative data was established for Miss Henrietta S t r a l son a f t e r having obtained the r e s u l t s for the other five stories, the only difference being that an additional vocabulary list was drawn up of all m o r a l vocabulary not appearing in the other five works. The number of new words increases as we move f r o m persecuted virtue through judgmental vice. Most of the words appearing on the following page under persecuted and active virtue and active vice a r e synonymous with the main vocabulary list. The new judgmental vice vocabulary, however, with the exception of the word magnificence, which is associated with the word luxe in the main listing, is not. The new words convey the main lists: s ' a c h a r n e r , délié and apathie. The word désespoir which was placed in this category has a slightly different connotation than in the other stories. Here it is not only the idea of being totally disheartened, but conveys an idea of violence in that it is used to mean desperate like a madman. Vocabulary words in Miss Henrietta Stralson not found in composite list of previous tales studied: Persecuted Virtue

Active Virtue

Active Vice

Judgmental Vice

revers suppliante

équitable humilité

bandit désastre duplicité lacs trames

s'acharner apathie assouvir délié désespoir magnificence maître sirène

The following data for Miss Henrietta Stralson is the same a s f o r the sets of tables in chapter three. It is interesting to compare this a r r a y with that of Florville et Courval, a work only four hundred words s h o r t e r . Florville et Courval has 809 tokens relating to vice and virtue; Miss Henrietta Stralson has 622; the f o r m e r has 226 types of words; the latter has 196. While there is a difference between the two works in the token distribution, the f o r m e r having m o r e o c c u r -

79

rences of active virtue than of active vice, the type distribution remains the same, active virtue being slightly higher than active vice in both cases. Like all of the other tales studied, the active virtue token distribution is higher than that of persecuted virtue, while the judgmental vice tokens remain the highest of all four categories. As in all the other works, active virtue types are higher than those of active vice. The type distribution follows the same pattern as for Dorgeville, Florville et Courval, and La Comtesse de Sancerre, persecuted virtue being roughly half of active virtue and active vice half of judgmental vice. TABLE 6: Miss Henrietta Stralson Total vocabulary: 17, 000 Tokens 622 words relating to vice and virtue 242 words relating to virtue 380 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue

- 111 occurrences - 131 occurrences 242 total

active vice judgmental vice

- 151 occurrences - 229 occurrences 380 total

Types 196 types of words relating to vice and virtue 70 words relating to virtue 126 words relating to vice persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

- 23 - 47 70 total - 40 -

86

126 total

Symbols for Miss Henrietta Stralson Senders

Receivers

N-Narrator G-Granwell ( vice ) Wil-Wilson ( vice )

RG-Gene ral G-Granwell Gave-

80 Gave- (vice) LS-Lady Stralson (virtue) H-Henrietta (virtue) W-Williams (virtue) Juge- (virtue)

LS-Lady Stralson H-Henrietta W-Williams Juge-

Miss Henrietta Stralson- THE SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS Persecuted Virtue H-H H-W

20 6

N-LS+H N-RG

2 1

N-H N-H+W N-LS N-W N-G

16 3 5 12 1

W-W W-H

5 1

IS-W LS-H

1 1

4 2 18 5 6 1 2 4 2 1

G-LS+H+W G-G G-H G-RG

2 11 16 2

Gave-G Gave-W

2 1

H-H H-G H-W H-RG

14 23 1 1

W-LS+H W-W W-H

1 1 2

Juge-LS+H

1

1 29 6 18 2

H-LS

1

Gave-G Gave-RG

1 1 5 3 9 1 1 1

5 9

Gave-H

2

G-RG G-G G-W G-H G-LS+H+W

1 7 3 7 1

H-G

6

Active Virtue N-W+H N-G N-H N-RG N-W N-Gave+G N-I£+W N-LS N-LS+H N-Juge Active Vice G-LS+H+W G-G G-RG G-H G-Gave Wil-G

1

H-H H-G H-RG

7 12 2

N-RG N-Gave N-H N-G+Gave N-Juge N-LS

66 1

N-Gave N-H

N-LS+H N-W N-G

1 2 24

LS-Gave LS-G LS-W LS-LS

1 2 1 1

W-W

1

N-H+W N-W

1 7

Judgmental Vice N-G N-LS+H

M i s s Henrietta S t r a l s o n -

THE SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATIONS

Judgmental Vice N-RG N-LS+W N-Gave+G

6 1 1

G-H G-RG G-W

30 6 3

Gave-G Gave-RG

3 1

H-W H-G H-H H-RG

2 14 15 1

G-LS G-G

1 37

M i s s Henrietta S t r a l s o n G-RG G-G G-W G-H G-LS+H+W G-Gave G-LS

15 84 6 71 3 2 1

H-G H-H H-W H-RG H-LS

55 56 9 4 1

N-H N-H+W

52 8

LS-G LS-RG

7 1

Juge-G

7

W-RG W-W W-H W-G

1 1 1 1

THE SENDER AND RECEIVER COMBINATION TOTALS

N-LS N-W N-G N-LS+H N-RG N-Gave+G N-LS+W N-Juge N-Gave Gave-H Gave-G Gave-W Gave-RG

10 27 93 6 17 3 3 3 5 2 6 1

2

W-W

W-H W-LS+H W-RG W-G LS-W LS-H LS-Gave LS-G LS-LS LS-RG Wil-G Juge-LS+H

M i s s Henrietta S t r a l s o n - THE A L P H A B E T I C A L VOCABULARY LIST P e r s e c u t e d Virtue Tokens accabler anéantir autel chagrin déchirer désespoir se désoler douleur Type Total: 23

3 4 1 1 1 5 2 2

Tokens dupe esclave faible immoler infortuné malheureux naïf pleurs

8 5

2

1 23 3 19

Tokens revers sacrifié suppliante tristesse tourmenté victime

5

2

1

2

1 3

total: 111

82

Miss Henrietta Strai son- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Active Virtue aimable agréable ange attendrir bienfaits brave bonté candeur céleste courage créature crédulité décence délicat digne divinité

Tokens 1 1 6 2 2 1 5 3 3 3 1 1 1 5 6 2

Tokens 3 1 3 1 3 1 6 1 1 14 1 1 1 1 1 1

Tokens noble 2 pitié 5 2 pudeur pur 2 1 récompensé reconnaissance 8 3 remords 1 respectable 1 sagesse 2 sensible sincère 2 1 sublime tendresse 4 1 vérité vertu 11

Tokens erreur 1 1 ensanglanté fausseté 6 faute 10 feindre 6 fripon 2 insulte 1 lacs 1 libertinage 1 maltresse 2 meurtres ( includes meurtrier ) 2 noir 1 1 piège

Tokens 3 7 3 2 8 4 1 2 1 14 19 6 1

doux équitable estime excellent fidélité franchise généreux gentillesse grâce honnête honneur honte humilité indulgence justice loyal

total : 131

Type Total: 47 Active Vice abandonner abuser amant bandit complot corruption coquin crime délit désastre se défaire déshonorer duplicité ennemi

Tokens 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 11 1 1 2 3 1 5

poignard punir ravisseur ruiner séduire torts trahir traître trames tromper venger violence voler

total : 151

Type Total: 40 Judgmental Vice Tokens abominable s'acharner adroit

1 1 2

Tokens affreux allumer apathie

6 2 1

ardent art assouvir

Tokens 2 7 2

83

Miss Henrietta Stralson- THE ALPHABETICAL VOCABULARY LIST Judgmental Vice Tokens 3 atrocité 3 barbare brûler 3 1 caprice 6 coupable cruel 10 créature 6 danger 6 2 débauche délié 1 2 délire 1 dépravé 1 désastre désespoir 1 11 désirs 1 détester dévorer 2 dureté 2 2 échauffer effrayer 2 égarer 1 embraser 1 enfer 3 3 enflammer enivrer 1 1 excès

Tokens fatal fermeté feu fléaux flétrir foudre fougeux frein frémir froide funeste fureurs furies haïr horreurs impie impudent impunément indigne infâme ingrat injuste insolent irriter jouissance luxe

2 1 5 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 2 6 7 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 1 8 1

Tokens magnificence 1 2 maître 2 monstre 1 misérable 2 méchant 1 mépriser 3 odieux 2 outrage 4 passion 11 perfide 2 persécuteur plaisir 4 2 politique 1 précipice ruse 7 1 sang-froid scélérat 8 1 sirène 1 stoique 2 terrible 1 tourment 1 tyran 1 vif 1 volupté total: 229

Type Total: 86 The Descending Order Vocabulary List. - The most frequently used words in the two virtue and vice lists are also the same words that occur most frequently in Florville et Courval. The words which are used only once or twice in the other five tales are the same words which occur only once or twice here. The words suppliant and tourment, for instance, are used only once here and once in Faxelange. The word sublime occurs once here and once in Eugénie de Franval. It would seem than that Sade has established a basic quantitative moral vocabulary list that he employs, almost a priori for each work. Miss Henrietta Stralson- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue

84 Miss Henrietta Strai son- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Persecuted Virtue malheureuse pleurs dupe infortune esclave désespoir revers anéantir

23 19 8 6 5 5 5 4

accabler naif victime se désoler douleur faible sacrifié tristesse

3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2

autel chagrin déchirer immoler maux suppliante tourment

14 11 8 6 6 6 5 5 5 4 3 3 3 3 3 3

justice remords attendrir bienfaits divinité noble pudeur pur sensible sincère aimable agréable brave créature crédulité décence

3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

équitable excellent gentillesse grâce honneur honte humilité indulgence loyal récompense respectable sagesse sublime vérité

19 14 11 10 8 7 6 6 6 5 4 3 3

poignard ravisseur abandonner se défaire fripon maîtresse meurtres ruiner traître amant bandit complot corruption

3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

délit désastres duplicité ensanglanté erreur insulte lacs libertinage noir piège trahir trames voler

11 11

cruel jouissance

10 8

Active Virtue honnête vertu reconnaissance ange digne généreux bonté délicat pitié tendresse candeur céleste courage doux estime fidélité Active Vice venger tromper crime faute séduire punir fausseté feindre violence ennemi torts abuser déshonorer Judgmental Vice désirs perfide

scélérat art

85 Miss Henrietta Strai son- THE DESCENDING ORDER VOCABULARY LIST Judgmental Vice horreur ruse affreux créature coupable danger haftfeu passion plaisir atrocité enfer barbare brûler enflammer frémir infâme odieux adroit allumer ardent assouvir débauche délire dévorer dureté

7 7 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

échauffer effrayer embraser fatal fougeux funeste furies ingrat injuste insolent maftre méchant monstre outrage persécuteur politique terrible abominable s'acharner apathie caprices délié dépravé désastres désespoir détester

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

égarer enivrer fermeté fléaux flétrir foudre froid frein fureurs impie impudent impunément indigne luxe magnificence mépriser misérable precipice sang-froid sirène stol'que tourment tyran vif volupté

Miss Henriette Stralson - The Type-Token Ratios. - The following data show that his particular work follows the same patterns and falls within the same norms as the other stories studied. The virtue and vice token combinations ( 2 . 1 , 1. 8; 4.1, 2. 6) repeat the same recurring pattern, and under the type combinations, the active and judgmental vice relationship is again equally proportioned. The only way in which any of these types differ from the other five works is that the persecuted virtue maximum is 3. 0; in the others it is 2. 9. The difference is minimal. The second set of ratios, indicating the proportions between the total vice and virtue frequencies have approximately the same percentage as all preceding works. The same proportions exist for the ratios of individual and total tokens and types to the total vocabulary as in the other works. The total number of words under each classification varies in the same proportions as compared to the other combinations. Within the dominant patterns previously established, this story also shows the same ratio of decrease in the number of tokens to types when moving from persecuted virtue through judgmental vice.

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Miss Henrietta Stralson Tokens persecuted virtue 111 2.1 active virtue 131 1.8

38

persecuted virtue 111 2.3 151 1. 7 active vice 262 total

242 total active vice judgmental vice

151 4.1 229 2.6

active virtue judgmental vice

360 total

380 total Types persecuted virtue 23 3. 0 active virtue 47 1.4

persecuted virtue active vice

40 3.1 86 1.3

23 2. 7 40 1.2 63 total

70 total active vice judgmental vice

131 1. 9 229 1.1

active virtue judgmental vice

47 2.4 86 1.3 113 total

126 total Tokens

persecuted virtue 111 151 active vice

persecuted virtue 111 active virtue 131 242 total active vice judgmental vice

151

229

1.5

262 total active virtue judgmental vice

380 total

131

229

1 3

360 total

Types persecuted virtue 23 47 active virtue

persecuted virtue active vice

70 total active vice judgmental vice

40

86

1.8

23 40 63 total

active virtue judgmental vice

126 total Ratio of total types to total frequencies- 3. 0

47

86

1 7 '

113 total

87

Under the next array of tables we find that the distribution of active virtue and active vice tokens and types to the total vocabulary is very similar, a common occurrence in many of the other stories studied. The ratio of the entire token population to the total vocabulary falls within the limits of the other works, and the ratio of the entire type population to the total vocabulary is the same as in all other works with the exception of Dorgeville. The ratio of the type groups to the total vocabulary is also very equally proportioned, with a difference of . 003 between both of the groups. Ratio of tokens to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. 006 . 007 . 008 . 013

Ratio of types to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue active virtue active vice judgmental vice

-

. 001 . 002 . 002 . 005

Ratio of entire token population to the total vocabulary - . 03 Ratio of entire type population to the total vocabulary - . 01 Ratio of token group to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 015 - . 021

persecuted virtue and active virtue - . 014 active vice and judgmental vice - . 022 Ratio of type groups to the total vocabulary persecuted virtue and active vice active virtue and judgmental vice

- . 003 - . 006

persecuted virtue and active virtue - . 004 active vice and judgmental vice - . 007 The Sender and Receiver Combinations Sender- Persecuted Virtue

Receiver- Persecuted Virtue

N - 40 Virtue - 40 Vice - 21

General - 2 Virtue - 85 Vice - 14

101 total

101 total

88

Sender- Active Virtue

Receiver- Active Virtue

N Virtue Vice -

General Virtue Vice -

46 44 34

8 76 40 124 total

124 total Sender- Active Vice

Receiver- Active Vice

N Virtue Vice -

General Virtue Vice -

47 28 59 134 total

14 44 76 134 total

Sender- Judgmental Vice

Receiver- Judgmental Vice

N Virtue Vice -

General - 16 Virtue - 72 Vice - 135

97 45 81 223 total

223 total

In the above list of sender and receiver combinations, the same phenomenon of vocabulary transfer occurs. As in Dorgeville and Florville et Courval, virtue is spoken of in the language of judgmental vice half as often as vice is spoken of in the same language, and, as in Dorgeville, vice is labeled as active virtue half as often as virtue is labeled in the same way. Virtue is also labeled as active vice over half as often as vice (44, 76). Here, as we have seen before, general comments are made about vice more often than about virtue. THE SIX STORIES - A SUMMARY All six stories show virtually identical types of recurrent patterns. Under the tokens we find that in every work the persecuted virtue category is lower than that of judgmental vice. The active virtue category tends to be higher or almost the same as that of active vice, with the exception of Miss Henrietta Stralson, where the active virtue count is 131 and the active vice 151. In Faxelange, for instance, it is 96 to 82, in Eugénie de Franval 262 to 262, in Florville et Courval 240 to 132 and in Dorgeville 75 to 73. In all of the works the other two token combinations are proportionally closer together than the two virtue and two vice groupings, with the exception of Eugénie de Franval, where both groupings are 2. 6 and 1. 5, due to the fact that the active virtue and active vice counts are exactly the same. The number of persecuted virtue types are much fewer than those of the other three categories. The number of persecuted virtue types in each story, no matter the length, tends to be around 20, with the

89 exception of Dorgeville where there are only 8. Here the fact that virtue is being persecuted is not revealed until the very end. Persecuted virtue types are always considerably fewer in number than judgmental vice types, although this is not necessarily true for the tokens, as in Faxelange, where the difference between persecuted virtue and judgmental vice tokens is only 3. In all six stories the active virtue types are always slightly higher than those of active vice: 47 to 40 in Miss Henrietta Stralson, for instance, 72 to 71 in Eugénie de Fran vai and 33 to 27 in Dorgeville. The judgmental vice category is always one half to two thirds higher than that of active virtue, with the exception of Faxelange, where there are only six more judgmental vice types than active virtue types. Sade has a tendency to vary the types to words used in each work less than he does the quantity of repetition, as can be seen by the ratio of total types to total frequencies. The stories with the fewest number of words, Faxelange and Dorgeville, have the highest ratio of types to frequencies: 2. 5 in Faxelange and 2.4 in Dorgeville, whereas the longest stoxy, Eugénie de Franval, has the lowest ratio (4.0). In all six works the ratio of token groups to each other is highly stable: 1.6 to 1. 6 for the two virtue to two vice groupings in both Eugénie de Franval and Dorgeville with a maximum difference of . 8 in Florville et Courval. The ratios of types to the total vocabulary is a much more stable relationship than that of the tokens. Persecuted virtue is always lower than that of judgmental vice, and quite often the active virtue and the active vice groupings have the same ratio: . 002 for both in Miss Henrietta Stralson, . 003 and . 029 in Faxelange, . 064 and . 063 in Eugénie de Franval and . 003 for both categories in Dorgeville and La Comtesse de Sancerre. All the works, with the exception of Dorgeville, have a ratio of . 03 or . 04 for the entire token population to the total vocabulary, and for the entire type population the ratio is . 01 for all stories with again the exception of Dorgeville, where it is . 03. The ratio of the token groups to the total vocabulary follow no real stable pattern. In some works the two virtue and two vice groups are proportionally closer together, and in some, such as La Comtesse de Sancerre, the other two groupings are proportionally closer, and in Eugénie de Franval they are the same. The two type groupings, on the other hand, are much more stable, i. e . , proportionally similar, than the two token groups. The difference between the two different groupings in Miss Henrietta Stralson is . 3 in both cases; in all other works there is a difference of only . 001 or . 002 between the two groupings. The sender and receiver combinations in all six works exhibit the same phenomenon of vocabulary transfer. Although the quantity of vocabulary transfer varies with each work and within each category, there is a tendency for vice to speak of itself in terms of persecuted virtue at least as often as virtue speaks of itself in these terms. There is also a tendency for vice to speak about virtue more often than virtue speaks about virtue, although this is not true for Eugénie de Franval. Virtue tends to receive at least half the amount of active

90

vice that vice receives in Miss Henrietta Stralson and Florville et Courval. Virtue receives at least half a s much judgmental vice a s vice receives, if not more, a s in Faxelange. Having established the stable and unstable elements in the moral vocabulary and discussed certain phenomena in relation to them, such as vocabulary t r a n s f e r , the equal number of vice and virtue opponents, and the types of vocabulary repetition or variety, it r e mains to be seen how the vocabulary is used grammatically, to see how and to what purpose the speech patterns themselves incorporate the moral vocabulary.

THE MORAL CONCEPTS: GRAMMATICAL DISCRIMINATION

The Sadean character's essence is only defined in terms of moral as distinguished from physical attributes, just as he exists in a moral milieu as distinguished from a physical setting. Descriptions of localities are cursory. Psychological motivations are all reduced to penchants toward good or evil. Social classes are described by their power to subject or their inability to do anything but to submit. The characters' exterior or real world is thus totally dependent upon their moral one, and the moral world, from the characters' point of view, is a carefully defined world. Both the virtuous and vicious characters pursue what they believe to be the abstract essence of vice and virtue. The reader views Sade' s work primarily through a moral optic, an optic that a very conscious narrator purposefully imposes from without on the characters he manipulates. This imposition of a moral optic is accomplished, as the tables show, through a consistent amount for each type of vocabulary word. Most of Sade's moral vocabulary, as the descending order vocabulary list shows, is used with approximately the same frequency in every work. The number of vice and virtue types remains proportionately about the same for each story. Persecuted virtue tokens always occur with less frequency than the others; judgmental vice tokens usually occur with the greatest frequency. Not only, however, are certain notions of vice and virtue conveyed through large, repetitive quantities of moral vocabulary, but through the grammatical breakdown of the vocabulary itself. The two virtue categories, grammatically as well as thematically, illustrate the ideas of weakness and passivity. The most common form the persecuted virtue words take is that of the adjective. Many past participles are used as adjectives, and there are many more adjectives than nouns and more nouns than verbs. Adjectives, such as la malheureuse, l'infortuné, and misérable are used as nouns. Sade emphasizes virtue's passivity by using adjectives, which are qualifiers, instead of using nouns, which have an essence. The very position in the sentence of words referring to virtue is weaker than those referring to vice. The active virtue words contain about an equal proportion of noun and substantive adjectives, but like the persecuted virtue vocabulary, it contains very few verbs. As the active virtue vocabulary is usually more varied and occurs with greater frequency than the persecuted virtue vocabulary, there is a larger proportion of nouns to adjectives.

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An interesting phenomenon in the virtue vocabulary is the large number of relatively short words. It is as though the importance of virtue was de-emphasized even by the number of syllables. This can be seen when in dealing with the virtue vocabulary, Sade will often choose the shorter adjectival form rather than the noun. It is much more common to find généreux instead of générosité, tendre instead of tendresse. By the constant repetition of the same shorter form of the word under the virtue vocabulary, the reader's attention becomes fixed upon certain salient characteristics of the virtue protagonists. The variety and alternation of adjective-noun forms does not exist in the same quantity as for the vice vocabulary. This lack of variety in the forms helps to emphasize the static quality of virtue. Within the vice vocabulary, on the other hand, the ethic of violence is emphasized through the word length, longer words being associated with argumentative prose. ( 1 ) Words of four syllable length and more are not uncommon in the judgmental vice category, whereas they are the exception in the virtue classification. The vice vocabulary is placed in a stronger position in the sentence than the virtue vocabulary, usually as an object, often as a subject, and sometimes in apposition. The much higher ratio of verbs in the vice vocabulary causes vice to become the linguistic center of interest in the works. The active vice category has approximately one half to one third the ratio of verbs to nouns, whereas the judgmental vice vocabulary contains a roughly equal number nouns and adjectives. The verbs comprise approximately one fifth of the vocabulary. There are, however, fewer verbs and more nouns under the judgmental vice category than under the active vice. The few adverbs are mainly under the judgmental vice category. The linguistic elements tend to support the thematic developments. Virtue is described in terms of the unhappy, the weak, the victim; vice is the strong, the extraordinary. The Sadean vocabulary of virtue is a more limiting concept than that of vice, and this is reflected even in the grammatical usage. NOTES (1) Werner Winter, "Style as Dialects", Statistics and Style, eds. Lubomir Dolezel and Richard W. Bailey, in Mathematical Linguistics and Automatic Language Processing (New York: 1968), VI, 9.

THE MORAL CONCEPTS: SPEECH PATTERNS

Many of Sade's stylistic patterns illustrate a contrapuntal exposition of vice and virtue. Neither of the concepts are referred to without their opposites immediately following, except at the moment where a crime is about to be committed, and at this point only the vice vocabulary will sometimes stand alone. The exposition of vice and virtue will sometimes take the form of alternating blocks of text. It is not infrequent, for instance, to find the concepts exposed in a l t e r nating paragraphs. In Eugénie de Franval virtue is discussed in the very first paragraph and the very last. It actually frames the story. Up until the moment where the corruption of Eugénie begins and vice gathers momentum, alternating paragraphs deal with the exposition of vice and virtue. The third and fourth paragraphs deal with the vices of Franval, the ninth with Franval, the tenth with his virtuous wife, and the eleventh and twelfth with Franval's vices. The next to last paragraph in the work deals with crime, the last with virtue. The description of vice and virtue will sometimes take the form of larger alternating blocks of text. In Faxelange virtue once again frames the story, but the entire first third of the work is given over to the development of the virtuous characteristics of the protagonist, and the other two thirds to the activities of vice. The most recurring technique that Sade uses, and one that is common to all six stories, is to place the opposing concepts within the same sentence. A random sampling of these recurrences has been selected from Eugénie de Franval: Et le perfide achevait ainsi, sans aucun remords, la séduction de cette malheureuse. ( 105 ) . . . les criminels plaisirs dont s'était enivré cet homme pervers . . . le plus cruel abandon sa femme . . . quelle victime, hélas ! ( 109 ) . . . l'un des hommes le plus vertueux . . . loin de tous les vices de sa robe . . . ( 116 ) . . . la vertueuse épouse de ce monstre . . . ( 120 ) la plus sage et la plus malheureuse des femmes . . . va . . . être outragée de son affreux époux . . . ( 126 ) Le monstre sort, il va jouir, avec sa coupable fille, du triomphe effrayant que le vice, ou plutôt la scélératesse, ose emporter sur l'innocence et sur le malheur. ( 145 )

94

Le scélérat s'éloigne . . . de l'innocence . . . ( 190 ) L'âme atroce d'Eugénie, résistant à ces procédés angéliques . . . (192) This juxtaposition of words pulled f r o m opposing moral spheres o c c u r s not only within the same sentence, but often the vice/virtue vocabulary is placed in the same position within each sentence. In the f i r s t example f r o m Eugénie de Fran val, two adjectives, perfide and malheureuse a r e used, one pertaining to judgmental vice and the other to persecuted virtue, one coming at the very beginning of the sentence, one at the very end. Between them two opposing nouns r e f e r to active vice and active virtue ( r e m o r d s and séduction). In the fourth example, two virtue adjectives a r e opposed by two vice adjectives. In the last example, the vice adjective atroce is countered with the virtue adjective angélique. The effects of these juxtapositions a r e multiple. The r e a d e r ' s a t tention is entirely caught between the play of neatly balanced opposites. It is these very fluctuations within the vocabulary that create the tension in Sade's moral universe. The play between the opposites, t h e i r continuation and progression, holds the r e a d e r ' s attention. The variety, the quantity and the combinations of moral t e r m s draw the r e a d e r ' s attention, but not necessarily the meaning behind the t e r m s themselves. This is not only because many of the words a r e m o r e or l e s s synonymous, but because the words themselves a r e used a s e x pletives. They embroider upon a situation, often melodramatically, but do not f u r t h e r any understanding of what is actually occurring in the story. An example of this can be seen in the second citation noted f r o m Eugénie de Fran val: . . . les criminels p l a i s i r s dont s'était enivré cet homme p e r v e r s . . . le plus cruel abandon de sa femme . . . quelle victime, hélas ! (109) Fran val is p e r v e r s e ; he abandons his wife and enjoys criminal pleasures. His wife is obviously a victim, but by stating the obvious, and a f t e r the fact, "quelle victime, h é l a s ! " and reinforcing the obvious with an exclamation point, Sade is emphasizing the lack of meaning behind his own words and at the same time enjoying his own verbal melodrama. Through these juxtapositions Sade sets up certain moral and social norms which he immediately proceeds to destroy. In the example cited above Franval is called criminal and p e r v e r s e . Certain moral n o r m s condemn his actions; at the same time, his c r i m e s make him drunk with pleasure. Against the m o r a l norms, Sade has constructed an opposing ethic of pleasure and violence. The physically violent and the visceral oppose the righteous and the p a s sive. This ethic of pleasure and violence finds its resistance and its meaning within the n o r m s themselves: meaning because violence and pleasure a r e sought not f o r their own sake but r a t h e r for the destructive acts that must necessarily accompany them ( 1 ) It is this pull between the opposing poles, the constant changing f r o m one type of moral t e r m to another, that c r e a t e s the tension

95

within the work. The recurring patterns among the categories illustrate how carefully this tension is created. The cessation of the tension means quite simply the end of the work, when either the virtuous or vicious protagonist disappears from the scene. ( 2 ) There is, however, no necessary point of culmination to the story. The adventures of any one work can be multiplied at will. The cut-off point is often arbitrary. By constantly changing from one pole to another, Sade is obviously playing a rhetorical game. He has supposed the reader's posited system of moral reference a s a primary basis on which to create his fictional world, using it as the only criteria by which his characters judge and act under all possible circumstances. Even space and time are seen solely through a moral optic. There is, for instance, no sense of differentiated space in Sade. The characters travel constantly, but one town resembles another. Towns are not described, only named. The towns and countries the characters pass through are marked only by the crimes committed there. Space is frozen in its anonymity; it serves only to mark the progress of crime. Likewise, there is no sense of diachronic time in Sade. Passing time is marked only by the crimes committed. In Eugénie de Fran vai, for instance, the reader learns that the story begins a year and a half before Eugénie is born. He next learns that Eugénie is six, and he is made aware of her age only because it is at this point that the father personally undertakes her education which will lead her down the path of corruption. The next time the reader becomes aware of passing time is when she is fourteen, the age at which she is first seduced by her father. Time, like space, is marked solely by crime and vice. By amplifying the concepts of vice and virtue, by extending them so that even time and space are seen through a moral optic, and then by causing that very moral optic to lose all significance through his use of juxtapositions and repetitions, Sade has created an illusion of morality. The juxtapositions create a rigidity, an immobility between the moral spheres. Just a s each character becomes totally dependent on its opposite, so does each moral term depend upon its opposite from which to draw its significance, and finally, its nullity. The idea of a moral dualism becomes necessary for the construction of Sade's fiction, but Sade turns this very moral dualism into an illusion. The vast quantities of repetitive moral vocabulary, the precisely alternating exposition of vice and virtue, and the melodramatic expletives all seem to mock themselves. They create an illusion, or a mythology of morality, just a s the crimes perpetrated behind high walls, in deep dungeons or in the isolated thickness of the forests create a mythology of place. The moral vocabulary only creates an illusion - and a deliberately contrived, transparent illusion - of verisimilitude. If the illusion of verisimilitude had been successful, if Sade had tried to convince the reader that all the events in his work could actually occur, the Sadean humour and irony would disappear.

96

NOTES ( 1 ) Commenting on this point Gaëton Picon says, "L'ordre du désir libéré qui est celui de Sade, n'est jamais l'ordre d'une libération . . . Il n'y a pas d'autre jouissance que celle où naît de la révolte: la destruction de bien l'enivre, non pas l'exercice du mal. " - L'Usage de la lecture ( Paris: Mercure de France, 1960), 59-60. ( 2 ) Sade felt no obligation to make virtue conquer in the dénouement. See his letter to Madame de Sade, March 20, 1783 in Lettres écrites de Vincennes et de la Bastille ( P a r i s : Jean Jacques Pauvert, 1966), 164.

THE IRONICAL DIMENSION OF THE MORAL CONCEPTS

The virtue/vice vocabulary loses its meaning in several ways: through virtue labeling itself as vice and vice labeling itself as virtue, through the large quantity of repetitive moral vocabulary which on one level t i r e s the reader, and through the juxtapositions which do not permit a refinement of moral sensibility. All these techniques of Sade' s work belong, at least in part, to his ironical bent, an aspect of Sade which has received very little attention. The very fact that his p a r ticular aspect of Sade has received little notice is noteworthy, for it indicates that most commentary of Sade has often been confined to a manifest level. The tables illustrate how Sade's vocabulary is based upon certain norms and upon certain quantities of different types of vocabulary that Sade felt obliged to include in each work. Persecuted virtue types, for instance, occur in the same quantities in five out of the six works. Judgmental vice types are always greater than those of persecuted virtue. The sender and receiver combinations how how the moral norms are transferred from one character to another so that virtue absorbs the vice vocabulary and vice the virtue vocabulary. This transfer of vocabulaiy is part of Sade's amoral if not anti-moral a t titude. Virtue and vice are constantly drawn to one another. The more virtuous the character, the more attractive the vicious protagonist finds him and the more effort he puts forth to ensnare him. The Countess of Sancerre cannot think of enough ruses to attract her daughter's financé. Virtue is also fascinated by vice. In spite of the fact that Dorgeville's wife has committed innumerable crimes, he laments her the rest of his days. The more the crimes of Franval multiply, the more forgiving his wife becomes. Thus not only does virtue participate in crimes, but virtue is inevitably drawn to their very agent. On the one hand the narrator rails against vice and praises virtue, while on the other hand the author fuses the two conv cepts. The difference between the implied and stated levels of meanings, the mutual attraction of vice and virtue, is one way in which Sade destroys the concepts of moral dualism which the narrator sets forth at the beginning of each stoiy. The implied level of meaning is that evil can be good and good evil. Once the two concepts have been fused through implied contrasts and with the two prototypes imitating each other, they lose their conventional meaning. Once vice acquires the attributes of virtue and virtue acquires those of vice, the t r a -

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ditional vice/virtue dichotomy is abolished. Instead, vice becomes a positive affirmation of the individual, a life-giving force. This new meaning attributed to vice is a break with the Western Socratic tradition, where, moving f r o m Plotinus to Augustine to Leibnitz, evil has always been considered a s a privation or a fault of being. This r e v e r s a l of values is often seen in the educational p r o c e s s that the c h a r a c t e r s undergo. Every m a j o r character in Sade's work is educated in some way, if only by the revelation of the existence of evil and what it means in the eyes of the villain. The education, however, usually contains ironic dimensions. In Eugénie de Franval, f o r instance, several paragraphs a r e given over to the description of the education Eugénie's father undertakes. Her entire education is pulled directly out of Rousseau's Emile. She is not placed in a swaddliiig-band in o r d e r that she might develop a sense of freedom. She eats lightly, e x e r c i s e s daily, and her lessons a r e discussed, never memorized. This type of education was given to Emile in o r d e r that he might become a morally upright thinking man. The e f fect of the selfsame education on Eugénie is just the opposite. The sense of freedom she finds f r o m this education c o r r u p t s h e r all the m o r e quickly. Eugénie is brought up in a reasonable, modest fashion, but, a s typical of Sadéan ironic craft, the use of reason and r e a s o n able ways of acting i s used to corrupt the idea of reason itself. Just a s the vicious c h a r a c t e r s reason away their criminal acts, so does Eugénie learn intellectually to defend her passions. Sade thus gives an ironic twist to popular ideas of his age, developing them to their extreme ramifications. Sade's irony i s brought to bear on several levels. He begins his work by categorically attributing specfic moral r o l e s to the virtuous and vicious protagonists. He then proceeds to switch the moral vocabulary and have the c h a r a c t e r s take on the attributes of their opposites even while they e x p r e s s h o r r o r at the actions of their antagonists. Through the c h a r a c t e r s ' actions as much a s by their words, the conventional meanings of vice and virtue a r e now abolished. Sade formulates his work by using certain r e c u r r i n g patterns in the moral vocabulary, certain quantities and varieties of different words for each prototype of vice and virtue. All the while he is ridiculing the very system he has set up through ironically implied contrasts. On the one hand Sade's works have moral import insofar a s they ridicule conventional moral concerns. On the other hand his use of irony i s also of methodological import, for it c r e a t e s the n e c e s s a r y distance between the r e a d e r and n a r r a t o r and the n a r r a t o r and c h a r a c ters. Sade also m a k e s fun of his own moral concerns by placing his adventures beyond the r e a l m of the possible. Villains commit every c r i m e imaginable; heroines float f r o m one criminal to another and come out unscathed. The unreality of the events is reinforced by the numerous repetitions of the moral vocabulary. The moral epithets in Sade's work captivate the r e a d e r , for Sade's work is marked, above all, by a m o r a l space which is limited and defined only by verbal interjections. His rhetorical games a r e p r i marily intellectual ones. The time had not yet come when the very

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writing of fiction was associated with any idea of the author's anguish. In one sense Sade's irony in expressing his concern for morality undermines his own creation. His fictional works offer puppet stage props a s a setting for an exorcism of morality. In the end, Sade's work becomes a purely creative act in which verbal dexterity is as much a means of sustaining a moral universe as any didactic intent.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barthes, Roland, "L'Arbre du crime", Tel Quel, XXVIII ( Winter, 1967), 23-37. Bataille, George, La Littérature et le mal ( P a r i s : Gallimard, 1957). Blanchot, Maurice, "A la rencontre de Sade", Les Temps Modernes, XXV (October, 1947), 577-612. —, Lautréamont et Sade ( P a r i s : Les Editions de Minuit, 1963). Brochier, Jean, Le Marquis de Sade et la conquête de l'unique. ( P a r i s : Le Terrain Vague, 1962). Damisch, Hubert, "L'écriture sans mesures", Tel Quel, XXVIII (Winter, 1968), 51-65. Derrida, Jacques, De la gra.iamatologie ( P a r i s : Les Editions de de Minuit, 1967). Giraud, Raymond, "The First Justine; On Good and Evil", Yale French Studies, XXXV (Winter, 1965), 36-48. Herdan, Gustave, Quanta tative Linguistics (Shoe String, 1964). Klossowski, Pierre, Sade mon prochain ( P a r i s : Aux Editions du Seuil, 1967). Lely, Gilbert, Le Marquis de Sade ( Paris: Gallimard, 1966). Paz, Octavio, "Corriente Alterna", Sur (February, 1962), 35-46. Picon, Gaëton, L'Usage de la lecture ( P a r i s : Mercure de France, 1960), 55-65. Pleynet, Marcelin, "Sade lisible", Tel Quel, XXXIV (Fall, 1969), 75-85. Sade, le Marquis de, Lettres écrites de Vincennes et de la Bastille ( P a r i s : Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1966). —, Les Crimes de l'amour, Vols. I, II, IH ( P a r i s : Jean-Jacques Fauvert, 1967). Sollers, Philippe, "Sade dans le texte", Tel Quel, XXVEI (Winter, 1967), 38-50. Temmer, Mark, "Style and Rhetoric", Yale French Studies, XXXV (Winter, 1965), 20-28. Werner, Winter, "Style a s Dialects", in Lubomir Dolezel and Richard W.Bailey, eds., Statistics and Slyle, Vol. VI (New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc., 1969), 3-9,

INDEX OF AUTHORS CITED

Augustine, 98 Barthes, Roland, 2, 48 Blanchot, Maurice, 8 Brochier, Jean, 4, 49 Derrida, Jaques, 48 Giraud, Raymond, 49 Klossowski, P i e r r e , 48 Leibnitz, 98 Plotinus, 98 Rousseau, Emile, 98 Paz, Octavia, 8 Picon, Gàèton, 94 Voltaire, Candide, 72 Winter, Werner, 92