Machlosophy  

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Machlosophy is a term found twice[1] in the English edition of Marquis de Sade: His Life and Works (1931) by Iwan Bloch. It is a translation of the German word Schmutzlitteratur (literally, dirty literature).

The translation which first used the term machlosophy is that of James Bruce, pseudonym of Solomon Malkin. Its etymology is unknown.

In the paragraph on machlosophy, Iwan Bloch quotes Jules Janin and Le Nouveau Paris by Louis-Sébastien Mercier.

"What age has so dirtied itself with obscene books as this great century?" asked Janin, "that even men like Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu and Mirabeau fashioned their works accenting to the taste of the time." Shortly before and during the Revolution machlosophy appears to have suppressed all nobler motives. The bookstores were literally pornographic libraries. Mercier declared in 1796: "Only obscene books are displayed, especially those whose title­page and frontispiece mock and jeer at modesty and good taste."

From the original German edition:

„Welches Zeitalter hat sich mit obscönen Büchern so beschmutzt wie dieses grosse Jahrhundert?" ruft Jules Janin aus, „das sogar Männer wie Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu und Mirabeau dem Geschmacke der Zeit nachgebend derartige Werke verfassten." Kurz vor und während der Revolution schien die Schmutzlitteratur alle edleren geistigen Erzeugnisse verdrängt zu haben. Die Bücherläden waren pornographische Bibliotheken geworden. Aus dem Jahre 1796 berichtet Mercier: „Man stellt nur noch obscöne Bücher aus, deren Titel und Kupferstiche gleicherweise die Scham und den guten Geschmack verhöhnen."[2]

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