novelist, one of the central figures in the Realist
movement; best known for his novel, Madame Bovary (1857),
a critical portrayal of the life and values of the French middle
classes; the novel caused a scandal and led to Flaubert being
prosecuted for "immorality."
Gustave Flaubert born in Rouen, France; father surgeon, mother
was doctor's daughter
passion for Elisa Schlésinger, a married woman eleven
years his elder
studied law in Paris against his will, failed exams
nervous disease, gave up law, devoted himself to literature
death of father and sister Caroline; Flaubert retired to Croisset,
near Rouen on the Seine, with his mother and infant niece; met
poet Louise Colet at studio of painter James Pradier
walking tour of the Loire and Brittany's coast
travels with Maxime du Camp through the middle east, Egypt, Greece,
end of relationship with Colet
influences: pessimism, nihilism; interest in the unknown; Alfred
Le Poittevin, Spinoza, Herbert Spencer; science and religion as
two poles of Flaubert's thought
with George Sand, Ivan Turgenev, Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant,
'idées reçues' ("received ideas");
bourgeois, middle class ideology and way of life, especially its
narrow concern with money, social status, and personal aggrandizement
of perfection in true craftsmanship: "le seul mot juste"
("the only right word")
to reach truth and create a beauty beyond conventional morality
and social realities
of Romantic and anti-Romantic ideas coupled with a desire for
objectivity and scientific detachment
of a Fool (Mémoires d'un fou) (1837), journal, tells
of Flaubert's passion for Elisa Schlésinger, a married
woman eleven years his elder, model for Marie Arnoux in L'Education
Bovary (1857), novel; life, loves, and death of Emma Bovary,
a beautiful woman married to a small town doctor named Charles
Bovary; dissatisfied with her marriage, Emma has a series of love
affairs which eventually lead her to social disgrace, financial
ruin, and suicide.
(1862), setting of novel is ancient Carthage; about daughter
of Carthaginian general Hamilcar; mercenaries revolt 240-237
BC, based on record of Greek historian Polybius (205-125 BC)
Education (L'Education sentimentale) (1869-70), novel; story
of Frédéric Moreau, a young lawyer infatuated with
Madame Marie Arnoux; backdrop of the 1848 Revolution.
- The Temptation
of Saint Anthony (La
Tentation de Saint Antoine) (1874), novel based on the life
of an Egyptian hermit (251?350?) said to have been tempted
by the devil; Flaubert's ambition in this work was to create a French
Faust; the work shows the influence of Spinoza's nihilism
and of Herbert Spencer.
- Three Tales
(Trois Contes) (1877): "Un Coeur simple" ("A
Simple Heart"), "La Légende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier"
("The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaler") and "Hérodias."
and Pecuchet (Bouvard et Pécuchet) (1881), about
two clerks who receive an inheritance, retire to the countryside,
and engage in a series of misguided scientific experiments; Flaubert's
attack on pseudo-science.
the Fields and Shores (Par les champs et par les grèves)
(published posthumously, 1886), journal; observations on 1847
tour, with Maxime du Camp, of the Loire and coast of Brittany.
c'est moi" ("Madame Bovary, that's me")
- "The author,
in his work, must be like God in the universe, present everywhere
and visible nowhere."
2001 by Fidel Fajardo-Acosta,
all rights reserved