Le complexe d'Abélard ou le célibat des gens de lettres

Abstract

Eric Walter : The abelard complex or the celibacy of intellectuals. This article, on the syndrome of celibacy and the fear of castration in modern literature, attempts to discern some aspects of the social and sexual imagination of the 18th-century philosophical intelligentsia, based on a genealogy — from Bayle to Sade — of the «philosophe » as bachelor. It reconsiders, from this point of view, the myth of Heloise and Abelard both in Bayle's Dictionary and behind the success of La Nouvelle Héloïse. Even more significant are the references to Socrates's mariage in Diderot's and Rousseau's autobiographical writings, which present three faces of femininity — courtisan, lover, wife. Finally, the inquiry is extended to the political, ideological and fantasmatic implications of the population debates and the celibacy dispute, in which the Church and Philosophy confront each other. Here we outline a microsociology of the 18th-century intelligentsia.