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FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE (1821-1880)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 484 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE (1821-1880) , See also:French novelist, was See also:born at See also:Rouen on the 12th of See also:December 1821. His See also:father, of whom many traits are reproduced in Flaubert's See also:character of See also:Charles Bovary, was a surgeon in practice at Rouen; his See also:mother was connected with some of the See also:oldest See also:Norman families. He was educated in his native See also:city, and did not leave it until 184o, when he came up to See also:Paris to study See also:law. He is said to have been idle at school, but to have been occupied with literature from the See also:age of eleven. Flaubert in his youth " was like a See also:young See also:Greek," full of vigour of See also:body and a certain shy See also:grace, enthusiastic, intensely individual, and apparently without any See also:species of ambition. He loved the See also:country, and Paris was extremely distasteful to him. He made the acquaintance of See also:Victor See also:Hugo, and towards the See also:close .of 184o he travelled in the See also:Pyrenees and See also:Corsica. Returning to Paris, he wasted his See also:time in sombre dreams, living on his patrimony. In 1846, his mother being See also:left quite alone through the deaths of his father and his See also:sister See also:Caroline, Flaubert gladly abandoned Paris and the study of the law together, to make a See also:home for her at Croisset, close to Rouen. This See also:estate, a See also:house in a pleasant piece of ground which ran down to the See also:Seine, became Flaubert's home for the See also:remainder of his See also:life. From 1846 to 1854 he carried on relations with the poetess, Mlle See also:Louise See also:Colet; their letters have been preserved, and according to M. Emile See also:Faguet, this was the only sentimental See also:episode of any importance in the life of Flaubert, who never married.

His See also:

principal friend at this time was Maxime du See also:Camp, with whom he travelled in See also:Brittany in 1846, and through the See also:East in 1849. See also:Greece and See also:Egypt made a profound impression upon the See also:imagination of Flaubert. From this time forth, See also:save for occasional visits to Paris, he did not stir from Croisset. On returning from the East, in i85o, he set about the See also:composition of Madame Bovary. He had hitherto scarcely written anything, and had published nothing. The famous novel took him six years to prepare, but was at length submitted to the Revue de Paris, where it appeared in serial See also:form in 1857. The See also:government brought an See also:action against the publisher and against the author, on the See also:charge of immorality, but both were acquitted; and when Madame Bovary appeared in See also:book-form it met with a very warm reception. Flaubert paid a visit to See also:Carthage in 1858, and now settled down to the archaeological studies which were required to equip him for Salamml e, which, however, in spite of the author's ceaseless labours, was not finished until 1862. He then took up again the study of contemporary See also:manners, and, making use of many recollections of his youth and childhood, wrote L'See also:Education sentimeniale, the composition of which occupied him seven years; it was published in 1869. Up to this time the sequestered and laborious life of Flaubert had been comparatively happy, but misfortunes began to gather around him. He See also:felt the anguish of the See also:war of 187o so keenly that the break-up of his See also:health has been attributed to it; he began to suffer greatly from a distressing See also:nervous malady. His best See also:friends were taken from him by See also:death or by fatal misunderstanding; in 1872 he lost his mother, and his circumstances became greatly reduced.

He was very tenderly guarded by his niece, Mme Commonville; he enjoyed a rare intimacy of friendship with See also:

George See also:Sand, with whom he carried on a See also:correspondence of immense See also:artistic See also:interest, and occasionally he saw his Parisian acquaintances, See also:Zola, A. See also:Daudet, Tourgenieff, the Goncourts; but nothing prevented the close of Flaubert's life from being desolate and See also:melancholy. He did not cease, however, to See also:work with the same intensity and thoroughness. La Tentation de See also:Saint-See also:Antoine, of which fragments had been published as See also:early as 18J7, was at length completed and sent to See also:press in 1874. In that See also:year he was subjected to a disappointment by the failure of his See also:drama Le Candidat. In 1877 Flaubert published, in one See also:volume, entitled Trois conies, Un Cceur See also:simple, La Legende de Saint-See also:Julien-l'Hospitalier and Herodias. After this something of his See also:judgment certainly deserted him; he spent the remainder of his life in the toil of See also:building up a vast See also:satire on the futility of human knowledge and the omnipresence of mediocrity, which he left a fragment. This is the depressing and bewildering Bouvard et Pecuchet (posthumously printed, 1881), which, by a curious See also:irony, he believed to be his masterpiece. Flaubert had rapidly and prematurely aged since 187o, and he was quite an old See also:man when he was carried off by a stroke of See also:apoplexy at the age of only 58, on the 8th of May 1880. He died at Croisset, but was buried in the See also:family vault in the See also:cemetery of Rouen. A beautiful See also:monument to him by See also:Chapu was unveiled at the museum of Rouen in 189o. The See also:personal character of Flaubert offered various peculiarities.

He was shy, and yet extremely sensitive and arrogant; he passed from silence to an indignant and noisy flow of See also:

language. The same inconsistencies marked his See also:physical nature; he had the build of a guardsman, with a magnificent See also:Viking See also:head, but his health was uncertain from childhood, and he was neurotic to the last degree. This ruddy See also:giant was secretly gnawn by misanthropy and disgust of life. His hatred of the " See also:bourgeois " began in his childhood, and See also:developed into a See also:kind of monomania. He despised his See also:fellow-men, their habits, their lack of intelligence, their contempt for beauty, with a passionate scorn which has been compared to that of an ascetic See also:monk. Flaubert's curious modes of composition favoured and were emphasized by these peculiarities. He worked in sullen solitude, sometimes occupying a See also:week in the completion of one See also:page, never satisfied with what he had composed, violently tormenting his See also:brain for the best turn of a phrase, the most absolutely final See also:adjective. It cannot be said that his incessant labours were not rewarded. His private letters show that he was not one of those to whom easy and correct language is naturally given; he gained his extraordinary perfection with the unceasing sweat of his brow. One of the most severe of See also:academic critics admits that " in all his See also:works, and in every page of his works, Flaubert may be considered a See also:model of See also:style." That he was one of the greatest writers who ever lived in See also:France is now commonly admitted, and his greatness principally depends upon the extraordinary vigour and exactitude of his style. Less perhaps than any other writer, not of France, but of See also:modern See also:Europe, Flaubert yields See also:admission to the inexact, the abstract, the vaguely inapt expression which is the bane of See also:ordinary methods of composition. He never allowed a cliche to pass him, never indulgently or wearily went on, leaving behind him a phrase which " almost " expressed his meaning.

Being, as he is, a mixture in almost equal parts of the romanticist and the realist, the marvellous propriety of his style has been helpful to later writers of both See also:

schools, of every school. The See also:absolute exactitude with which he adapts his expression to his purpose is seen in all parts of his work, but particularly in the portraits he draws of the figures in his principal romances. The degree and manner in which, since his death, the fame of Flaubert has extended, form an interesting See also:chapter of See also:literary See also:history. The publication of Madame Bovary in 1857 had been followed by more See also:scandal than admiration; it was not understood at first that this novel was the beginning of a new thing, the scrupulously truthful See also:portraiture of life. Gradually this aspect of his See also:genius was accepted, and began to See also:crowd out all others. At the time of his death he was famous as a realist, pure and simple. Under this aspect Flaubert exercised an extraordinary See also:influence over E. de See also:Goncourt, See also:Alphonse Daudet and M. Zola. But even since the decline of the realistic school Flaubert has not lost See also:prestige; other facets of his genius have caught the See also:light. It has been perceived that he was not merely realistic, but real; that his See also:clairvoyance was almost boundless; that he saw certain phenomena more clearly than the best of observers had done. Flaubert is a writer who must always See also:appeal more to other authors than to the See also:world at large, because the See also:art of See also:writing, the indefatigable pursuit of perfect expression, were always before him, and because he hated the lax felicities of improvization as a disloyalty to the most sacred procedures of the literary artist. His (Euvres completes (8 vols,, 1885) were printed from the See also:original See also:manuscripts, and included, besides the works mentioned already, the two plays, Le Candidat and Le See also:Chateau See also:des azurs.

Another edition 0o vols.) appeared in 1873-1885. Flaubert's correspondence with George Sand was published in 1884 with an introduction by See also:

Guy de See also:Maupassant. Other See also:posthumous works are See also:Par See also:les champs et par les greves (1885),•the result of a tour in Brittany; and four volumes of Correspondance (1887-1893). See also See also:Paul See also:Bourget, Essais de psychologie contemporaine (1883); Emile Faguet, Flaubert (1899) ; See also:Henry See also:James, French Poets and Novelists (1878) ; Emile Zola, Les Romanciers naturalistes (1881); C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. xiii., Nouveaux lundis, vol. iv.; and the Souvenirs lilteraires (2 vols., 1882–1883) of Maxime du Camp. (E.

End of Article: FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE (1821-1880)

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