The pure pleasure of Giacomo Casanova. In Krytyka, No. 7-8 (189-190), 2013, pp. 43-47.

The article presents episodes from Giacomo Casanova’s The story of my life. Volodymyr Yermolenko analyzes the image of Casanova and its symbolic role in the context of the intellectual history of the 18th–19th centuries. The author identifies the following characteristics of the image of Casanova: a philosophy of hedonism, a utopia of free pleasure, the duality of the soul – the light side of sexuality and the dark side of magic. In the 19th century, emerged a cult of absolutized suffering, anti-evdemonism, and the tragic nature of existence. The conclusion states that both paths are false, since pleasure and suffering are necessary aspects of human existence.