Georges Bataille
Biography of Georges Bataille
Full Name and Common Aliases
Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille, commonly known simply as Georges Bataille, was a French intellectual whose work spanned various disciplines, including literature, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. He occasionally wrote under pseudonyms, such as Lord Auch, to explore themes that were considered controversial or taboo.
Birth and Death Dates
Georges Bataille was born on September 10, 1897, in Billom, France, and he passed away on July 8, 1962, in Paris, France.
Nationality and Profession(s)
Bataille was a French national. His professional life was as diverse as his intellectual pursuits; he was a librarian, writer, philosopher, and social critic. His work often defied conventional categorization, blending elements of fiction, philosophy, and critical theory.
Early Life and Background
Georges Bataille's early life was marked by personal and familial challenges. Born to a father who was blind and paralyzed and a mother who struggled with mental health issues, Bataille's childhood was fraught with difficulties. Despite these challenges, he excelled academically and pursued higher education in Paris. He initially studied at the École des Chartes, where he trained as a medievalist and paleographer, a background that would later inform his eclectic intellectual pursuits.
Major Accomplishments
Bataille's major accomplishments are not easily confined to a single field. He was a founding member of several influential intellectual groups, including the College of Sociology and the secret society Acéphale. These groups were dedicated to exploring the intersections of sociology, anthropology, and the sacred, often challenging the boundaries of conventional thought. Bataille's work in these groups helped to foster a community of thinkers who were interested in exploring the darker aspects of human experience.
Notable Works or Actions
Georges Bataille's literary and philosophical output is vast and varied. Among his most notable works is "The Story of the Eye" (1928), a novella that explores themes of eroticism and transgression. His philosophical treatise "The Accursed Share" (1949) presents a theory of general economy that challenges traditional economic thought by emphasizing the role of excess and waste. Bataille's essay "The Notion of Expenditure" (1933) further explores these themes, arguing that human societies are defined not by their production but by their consumption and waste.
Bataille also made significant contributions to the field of religious studies with his work "Theory of Religion" (1973), which was published posthumously. In this work, he examines the role of the sacred in human life, proposing that religious experience is fundamentally linked to the experience of the taboo and the transgressive.
Impact and Legacy
Georges Bataille's impact on contemporary thought is profound and far-reaching. His work has influenced a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, literature, sociology, and cultural studies. Bataille's exploration of taboo subjects and his challenge to conventional morality have inspired subsequent generations of thinkers, including post-structuralists and postmodernists. His ideas about the sacred, transgression, and the limits of human experience continue to resonate in contemporary debates about the nature of society and culture.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
Georges Bataille is widely quoted and remembered for his fearless exploration of subjects that many consider taboo or controversial. His willingness to confront the darker aspects of human nature and his challenge to conventional moral and philosophical boundaries have made him a seminal figure in 20th-century thought. Bataille's work invites readers to question the limits of experience and the nature of the sacred, making his ideas both provocative and enduring. His influence is evident in the works of later philosophers and writers who have drawn on his ideas to explore the complexities of human existence. As a result, Bataille remains a compelling and often quoted figure in discussions about the intersections of philosophy, literature, and culture.
Quotes by Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille's insights on:
The miraculous moment is the moment when anticipation dissolves into NOTHING. It is the moment when we are relieved of anticipation, man’s customary misery, of the anticipation that enslaves, that subordinates the present moment to some anticipated result. Precisely in the miracle, we are thrust from our anticipation of the future into the presence of the moment, of the moment illuminated by a miraculous light, the light of the sovereignty of life delivered from its servitude.
VII The happiness we find in becoming is possible only by annihilating the reality of “existences” and lovely appearance, and through the pessimistic destruction of illusions: so, by annihilating even the loveliest appearances, Dionysian happiness attains its height.
The certainty of incoherence in reading, the inevitable crumbling of the soundest constructions, is the deep truth of books. Since appearance constitutes a limit, what truly exists is a dissolution into common opacity rather than a development of lucid thinking. The apparent unchangingness of books is deceptive: each book is also the sum of the misunderstandings it occasions.
A poet doesn’t justify-he doesn’t accept-nature completely. True poetry is outside laws. But poetry ultimately accepts poetry.
Poetry reveals a power of the unknown. But the unknown is only an insignificant void if it is not the object of a desire. Poetry is a middle term, it conceals the known within the unknown: it is the unknown painted in blinding colors, in the image of a sun.
The power of death signifies that this real world can only have a neutral image of life, that life’s intimacy does not reveal it’s dazzling consumption until the moment it gives out.
That discourse one might call the poetry of transgression is also knowledge. He who transgresses not only breaks a rule. He goes somewhere that the others are not; and he knows something the others don’t know.