Ebook: Flaubert: a biography
Author: Brown Frederick, Flaubert Gustave
- Tags: LITERARY CRITICISM / General, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: fiction novelists & prose writers, Novelists French, Novelists French--19th century, Biographies, Electronic books, Biography, Flaubert Gustave -- 1821-1880, Novelists French -- 19th century -- Biography
- Year: 2007
- Publisher: Random House
- City: London
- Language: English
- epub
Gustave Flaubert, whose Madame Bovary outraged France's right-thinking bourgeoisie when it was first published in 1857, is brought to life in Frederick Brown's new biography in all his singularity and brilliance. Frederick Brown's portrayal is of an artist fraught with contradictions - his wit and bravado coexisting with great vulnerability.
A sedentary man by nature, Flaubert undertook epic voyages through Egypt and the Middle East. He could be flamboyantly uncouth, but was fanatically devoted to a beautifully cadenced prose. While energized by his camaraderie with male friends, such as Turgenev, the Goncourt brothers, Zola and Maupassant, he depended for emotional nurturing upon maternal women, most notably George Sand.
Nineteenth-century France literally put Flaubert on trial for portraying 'lewd behaviour' in Madame Bovary. But it also made him a celebrity and, indirectly, brought about his financial ruin, probably hastening his...