Comprising the Critical Dictionary & Related Texts (Edited by [[Georges Bataille]]?)

In his Autobiographical Note, dating from around 1958, Georges Bataille wrote about himself as follows: "from 1914 onwards, he is convinced that his concern in this world is with writing and, in particular, with the formulation of a paradoxical philosophy." This was something of an understatement: paradox is present at every level of Bataille's thought, not least because he was convinced that thought, by its very nature, was unable to cast even a dim light upon those essential problems of life that he wished to explore. Despite these reservations he evolved a system (or rather an anti-system) of ideas of immense subtlety and complexity, which developed over many years. His basic notions remained remarkably consistent, however, since they derived from a small group of interests that were in position from an early point on in his career (evident in his texts in this collection which are among his earliest published works), after which he embarked on a large opus of elaboration. Apart from the consistency of his ideas, what is also remarkable in Bataille is his consistency in tone; everything he wrote is vehement, impassioned, and moves forward into disturbing realms of human life with teeth gritted. The texts in this anthology share these characteristics, also present in many of the texts not written by Bataille: an indication of the powerful influence he exerted upon his contemporaries.

Before considering Bataille's basic ideas in relation to the texts here, some historical documentation seems desirable, since both sets of texts arose from particular circumstances and events: principally the rise, and then the defeat, of Fascism, and the periods of upheaval that preceded and followed the Second World War and the Nazi occupation of France. This book also gives the first account of the inception of the Da Costa Encyclopédique. Until now there has been virtually no information about the circumstances surrounding its publication, its editors, authors, or intentions (and no doubt this first account contains both errors and omissions). I have confined myself in this introduction to a description of the background to, and aims of, the texts that follow, and to a fairly brief survey of some of Bataille's ideas as they relate to them; biographies of the various participants can be found on pp. 158-163.