G. Bataille, "La conjuration sacrée"

Notes on Georges Bataille, “La conjuration sacrée” (1936)

“La conjuration sacrée,” Œuvres complètes, vol. I, ed. Denis Hollier (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), 442-46; originally published in Acéphale 1 (June 1936): 2-4

English translation: “The Sacred Conspiracy,” Visions of Excess, ed. Allan Stoekl, trans. Allan Stoekl (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 178-81.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

1. “La conjuration sacrée” is the introduction to the inaugural issue of the revue Acéphale. This first issue, which is also titled “La conjuration sacrée,” names Georges Ambrosino, Bataille, and Pierre Klossowski as editors.

TEXT NOTES

1. The French title is more evocative than its English translation because the French conjuration has the sense of both “conspiracy” and “exorcism.” In addition, the Latin coniurare literally means “to swear together” and also was used to mean “to pray by something holy.” Since French has the word conspiration, it seems likely that Bataille intended his title to evoke all these meanings of conjuration.

2.

André Masson’s cover for the first issue of Acéphale

Ce que je pense et que je représente, je n l’ai pas pensé ni représenté seul. J’ecris dans une petite mason froide d’un village de pêcheurs, un chien vient d’aboyer dans la nuit. Ma chambre est coisine de la cuisine où André Masson s’agite heureusement et chante : au moment même où j’écris ainsi, il vient de mettre sur un phonographe le disque de l’ouverture de « Don Juan » : plus que toute autre chose, l’ouverture de « Don Juan » lie ce que m’est échu d’existence à un défi qui m’ouvre au ravissement hors de soi. A cet instant même, je regarde cet être acéphale, l’intrus que deux obsessions également emportées composent, devenir le « Tombeau de Don Juan ».

What I have thought or represented, I have not thought or represented alone. I am writing in a little cold house in a village of fishermen: a dog has just barked in the night. My room is next to the kitchen where André Masson is happily moving around and singing; at this very moment, as I write, he has just put on the phonograph a recording of the overture to Don Giovanni; more than anything else, the overture to Don Giovanni ties my lot in life to a challenge that opens me to a rapturous escape from the self. At this very moment, I am watching this acephalic being, this intruder composed of two equally excited obsessions, become the “Tomb of Don Giovanni.”

Masson and Bataille - Tossa, April 1936

Lorsqu’il y a quelques jours, j’étais avec André Masson dans cette cuisine, assis, un verre de vin dans la main, alors quie lui, se représentant tout à coup sa propre mort et la mort des siens, les yeux fices, souffrant, criait preque qu’il fallait que la mort devienne une mort affectueuse et passionnée, criant sa haine pour un monde qui fait peser jusque sur la mort sa patte d’employé, je ne pouvais déjà plus douter que le sort et le tumulte infini de la vie humaine ne soient ouverts à ceux qui ne pouvaient plus exiter comme des yeux crevés mais comme des voyants emportés par un rêve bouleversant qui ne peut pas leur appartenir. - Tossa, 29 avril 1936

When, a few days ago, I was with André Masson in this kitchen, seated, a glass of wine in my hand, he suddenly talked of his own death and the death of his family, his eyes fixed, suffering, almost screaming that it was necessary for it to become a tender and passionate death, screaming his hatred for a world that weighs down even on death with its employee’s paw—and I was no longer able to doubt that the lot and the infinite tumult of human life were open to those who could no longer exist as empty eye sockets, but as seers swept away by an overwhelming dream they could not own. - Tossa, 29 April 1936 [Stoekl translation]

Masson with Bataille and his daughter, Laurence -
Tossa, April 1936

IMAGE CREDITS

1. Acéphale cover: Bernd Mattheus, Georges Bataille: Eine Thanatographie, vol. I (Munich: Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 1984), 345; scanned and enhanced 11 Mar 2000.

2. Masson and Bataille: Bernd Mattheus, Georges Bataille: Eine Thanatographie, vol. I (Munich: Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 1984), 300; scanned and enhanced 18 Mar 2000.

3. Masson, Laurence, and Bataille: Bernd Mattheus, Georges Bataille: Eine Thanatographie, vol. II (Munich: Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 1988); scanned and enhanced 18 Mar 2000.

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