''Inner Experience'' (french: L'expérience intérieure) is a 1943 book by the French intellectual Georges Bataille. His first lengthy philosophical treatise, it was followed by ''Guilty'' (1944) and ''On Nietzsche'' (1945). Together, the three works constitute Bataille's ''Summa Atheologica'', in which he explores the experience of excess, expressed in forms such as laughter, tears, eroticism, death, sacrifice and poetry.

Summary

Bataille discusses "inner experience", which he defines as states usually considered forms of mystical experience, including ecstasy and rapture.

Reception

''Inner Experience'' received a negative reception from several authors due to having been published during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Bataille was criticized for this privately by Jules Monnerot, and publicly by Patrick Waldberg.

Boris Souvarine Boris Souvarine (1 November 1895 – 1 November 1984), also known as Varine, was a French Marxist, communist activist, essayist and journalist. A founding member of the French Communist Party, Souvarine is noted for being the only non-Russian com ...

regarded its publication as a sign of Bataille's acceptance of the occupation of France. Bataille was attacked by surrealists in a pamphlet entitled ''Nom de Dieu''. The surrealists considered Bataille an idealist. The philosopher

Gabriel Marcel Gabriel Honoré Marcel (7 December 1889 – 8 October 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist. The author of over a dozen books and at least thirty plays, Marcel's work focused on the mode ...

criticized the work from a Christian perspective.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{Authority control 1943 non-fiction books Aesthetics books Éditions Gallimard books French non-fiction books Works by Georges Bataille fr:L'Expérience intérieure it:L'esperienza interiore