Gustave Flaubert

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Lore & Background

Flaubert was born in Rouen, in the Seine-Maritime department of Upper Normandy, the second son of Anne Justine Caroline and Achille-Cléophas Flaubert, director and senior surgeon of the major hospital in Rouen. He began writing at an early age, as early as eight according to some sources. He was educated at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen until 1840, then went to Paris to study law. In Paris he was an indifferent student and found the city distasteful, making a few acquaintances including Victor Hugo. Toward the end of 1840 he traveled in the Pyrenees and Corsica. In 1846, after an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris and abandoned the study of law. His first finished work was *November*, a novella completed in 1842. In September 1849 he completed the first version of *The Temptation of Saint Anthony*, reading it aloud to Louis Bouilhet and Maxime Du Camp over four days; his friends told him to throw the manuscript in the fire and focus on day-to-day life. In 1850, after returning from Egypt, he began *Madame Bovary*, which took five years to write. Serialized in the *Revue de Paris* in 1856, the government brought an action against the publisher and author on the charge of immorality, but both were acquitted. The book met with a warm reception. In 1858 he traveled to Carthage to gather material for *Salammbô*, completed in 1862 after four years. He next wrote *L'Éducation sentimentale* (*Sentimental Education*), an effort that took seven years, published in 1869. In the 1870s he wrote an unsuccessful drama, *Le Candidat*, and published a reworked version of *The Temptation of Saint Anthony*. He devoted much time to *Les Deux Cloportes*, later *Bouvard et Pécuchet*, breaking the project only to write *Three Tales* between 1875 and 1877. He spent the remainder of his life on *Bouvard et Pécuchet*, unfinished and posthumously published in 1881. Flaubert believed it to be his masterpiece, though it received a very small print run and mostly lukewarm reviews. At his death he may have been working on a historical novel based on the Battle of Thermopylae.

Reader's Guide

Flaubert famously avoided the inexact, the abstract and the vaguely inapt expression, and scrupulously eschewed the cliché. In a letter to George Sand he said he spent his time 'trying to write harmonious sentences, avoiding assonances.' He believed in and pursued the principle of finding 'le mot juste' ('the right word'), working in sullen solitude, sometimes occupying a week in the completion of one page. He said he wished to forge a style 'that would be rhythmic as verse, precise as the language of the sciences, undulant, deep-voiced as a cello, tipped with flame.' He famously said that 'an author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.' Walter Pater called Flaubert the 'martyr of style.' Critic James Wood wrote: 'Novelists should thank Flaubert the way poets thank spring; it all begins again with him. There really is a time before Flaubert and a time after him. Flaubert decisively established what most readers and writers think of as modern realist narration.' Flaubert's lean and precise writing style has had a large influence on 20th-century writers such as Franz Kafka and J. M. Coetzee. As Vladimir Nabokov discussed, 'The greatest literary influence upon Kafka was Flaubert's.' Politically, Flaubert described himself as a 'romantic and liberal old dunce,' an 'enraged liberal,' a hater of all despotism. He never married or had children, explaining in an 1852 letter to Colet that he would 'transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence.' He lived most of his life in Croisset near Rouen, and died there of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1880 at age 58.

Did You Know?

• Flaubert began writing as early as age eight, according to some sources.
• His friends Louis Bouilhet and Maxime Du Camp told him to throw the manuscript of *The Temptation of Saint Anthony* in the fire after a four-day reading.
• The government brought an action against the publisher and author of *Madame Bovary* on the charge of immorality, but both were acquitted.
• Flaubert spent up to a week on a single page, pursuing 'le mot juste.'
• He may have been working on a historical novel about the Battle of Thermopylae at the time of his death.

The Novelist's Arc: From First Draft to Unfinished Masterpiece

Flaubert's literary output spanned four decades yet yielded only a handful of major works. His first finished piece, the novella November, was completed in 1842. In 1849 he produced a first draft of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, which he read aloud over four days to friends Louis Bouilhet and Maxime Du Camp, forbidding any interruption. They urged him to burn the manuscript and turn to everyday life instead. That counsel shaped Madame Bovary, begun after his return from Egypt in 1850 and taking five years to complete. Serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856, the novel triggered a government prosecution for immorality, but Flaubert and his publisher were acquitted, and the book edition was warmly received. He then spent four years on the historical Salammbô, researching in Carthage in 1858, and seven years on L'Éducation sentimentale, his final complete novel, published in 1869. The 1870s brought the unsuccessful drama Le Candidat, a reworked Saint Anthony, and the Three Tales. The remainder of his life was consumed by Bouvard et Pécuchet, a satire on the futility of knowledge and the prevalence of mediocrity, which he regarded as his masterpiece. The unfinished novel appeared posthumously in 1881 to a small print run and indifferent reviews.

The Cult of the Right Word

Flaubert's approach to prose was defined by an almost religious devotion to precision. He shunned vagueness, abstraction, and cliché with equal ferocity, and in a letter to George Sand he described his daily labor as an attempt to compose harmonious sentences while avoiding assonances. Central to his method was the pursuit of le mot juste, the single exact word, which he regarded as the essential key to literary excellence. He worked in sullen solitude, sometimes spending a week on a single page, never satisfied with what he had written. In his correspondence he made clear that correct prose did not flow naturally from him; his style was the product of relentless work and revision. He once articulated his ideal: a style rhythmic as verse, precise as scientific language, deep-voiced as a cello, tipped with flame, capable of piercing an idea like a dagger while allowing thought to glide over a smooth surface like a skiff before a favorable wind. He also insisted that an author must be like God in the universe—present everywhere yet visible nowhere. This painstaking discipline meant he published far less than contemporaries such as Balzac or Zola, and Walter Pater dubbed him the martyr of style.

Rouen, Paris, and the Road to Literature

Born on 12 December 1821 in Rouen, in the Seine-Maritime department of Upper Normandy, Gustave Flaubert was the second son of Anne Justine Caroline Fleuriot and Achille-Cléophas Flaubert, who served as director and senior surgeon of the city's major hospital. He reportedly began writing as early as the age of eight. His formal education took place at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen, where he remained until 1840. He then moved to Paris to study law, but proved an indifferent student and found the capital distasteful. He did make a few notable acquaintances, including Victor Hugo, and toward the end of 1840 he traveled through the Pyrenees and Corsica. In 1846, following an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris and abandoned his legal studies altogether. That same year he traveled in Brittany with his lifelong friend Maxime Du Camp. A long journey to the Middle East in 1849–50 took him through Greece and Egypt; in Beirut he contracted syphilis, and he spent five weeks in Istanbul in 1850. These travels, combined with his early literary experiments, laid the groundwork for the novelist he would become.

A Private Life, a Public Conscience

Flaubert never married and had no children. In an 1852 letter to his companion Louise Colet, with whom he had a relationship from 1846 to 1854, he explained his reasons for not wanting children. After leaving Paris he settled at Croisset, near the Seine and close to Rouen, where he lived for the rest of his days, making only occasional trips to Paris and England, the latter where he apparently maintained a mistress. Politically, he described himself as a romantic and liberal old dunce, an enraged liberal, a hater of all despotism, and a champion of every individual protest against power and monopolies. His correspondence, prolific over a lifetime, has been collected in several volumes and remains a vital document of his inner life. The celebrated writer Guy de Maupassant was among his protégés. Flaubert died on 8 May 1880, and his unfinished Bouvard et Pécuchet was published the following year. He is remembered as the leading exponent of literary realism in France and beyond, and his scrupulous devotion to style continues to influence writers worldwide.