Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality". He is known especially for his debut novel ''Madame Bovary'' (1857), his ''Correspondence'', and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert.

Life

Early life and education

Flaubert was born in Rouen, in the Seine-Maritime department of Upper Normandy, in northern France. He was the second son of Anne Justine Caroline (née Fleuriot; 1793–1872) and Achille-Cléophas Flaubert (1784–1846), 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,Lycée Pierre Corneille de Rouen – History
/ref> and did not leave until 1840, whereby he went to Paris to study law. In Paris, he was an indifferent student and found the city distasteful. He made a few acquaintances, including Victor Hugo. Toward the end of 1840, he travelled in the Pyrenees and Corsica. In 1846, after an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris and abandoned the study of law.

Personal life

From 1846 to 1854, Flaubert had a relationship with the poet Louise Colet; his letters to her have survived. After leaving Paris, he returned to Croisset, near the Seine, close to Rouen, and lived there for the rest of his life. He did however make occasional visits to Paris and England, where he apparently had a mistress.

Politically, Flaubert described himself as a "romantic and liberal old dunce" (''vieille ganache romantique et libérale''), an "enraged liberal" (''libéral enragé''), a hater of all despotism, and someone who celebrated every protest of the individual against power and monopolies.

With his lifelong friend Maxime Du Camp, he travelled in Brittany in 1846. In 1849–50 he went on a long journey to the Middle East, visiting Greece and Egypt. In Beirut he contracted syphilis. He spent five weeks in Istanbul in 1850. He visited Carthage in 1858 to conduct research for his novel ''Salammbô''.

Flaubert never married and never had children. His reason for not having children is revealed in a letter he sent to Colet, dated 11 December 1852. In it he revealed that he was opposed to childbirth, saying he would "transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence".

Flaubert was very open about his sexual activities with prostitutes in his writings on his travels. He suspected that a chancre on his penis was from a Maronite or a Turkish girl. He also engaged in intercourse with male prostitutes in Beirut and Egypt; in one of his letters, he describes a "pockmarked young rascal wearing a white turban".

According to his biographer Émile Faguet, his affair with Louise Colet was his only serious romantic relationship.

Flaubert was a diligent worker and often complained in his letters to friends about the strenuous nature of his work. He was close to his niece, Caroline Commanville, and had a close friendship and correspondence with George Sand. He occasionally visited Parisian acquaintances, including Émile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Ivan Turgenev, and Edmond and Jules de Goncourt.

The 1870s were a difficult time for Flaubert. Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the War of 1870, and his mother died in 1872. After her death, he fell into financial difficulty due to business failures on the part of his niece's husband. Flaubert lived with venereal diseases most of his life. His health declined and he died at Croisset of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1880 at the age of 58. He was buried in the family vault in the cemetery of Rouen. A monument to him by Henri Chapu was unveiled at the museum of Rouen.

As a devoted Spinozist, Flaubert was significantly influenced by Spinoza's thought. He was also a pantheist.

Writing career

His first finished work was '' November'', a novella, which was completed in 1842.

In September 1849, Flaubert completed the first version of a novel, '' The Temptation of Saint Anthony.'' He read the novel aloud to Louis Bouilhet and Maxime Du Camp over the course of four days, not allowing them to interrupt or give any opinions. At the end of the reading, his friends told him to throw the manuscript in the fire, suggesting instead that he focus on day-to-day life rather than fantastic subjects.

In 1850, after returning from Egypt, Flaubert began work on ''Madame Bovary''. The novel, which took five years to write, was serialized in the ''Revue de Paris'' in 1856. The government brought an action against the publisher and author on the charge of immorality, which was heard during the following year, but both were acquitted. When ''Madame Bovary'' appeared in book form, it met with a warm reception.

In 1858, Flaubert travelled to Carthage to gather material for his next novel, ''Salammbô''. The novel was completed in 1862 after four years of work.

Drawing on his youth, Flaubert next wrote ''L'Éducation sentimentale'' ('' Sentimental Education''), an effort that took seven years. This was his last complete novel, published in the year 1869.

He wrote an unsuccessful drama, ''Le Candidat,'' and published a reworked version of ''The Temptation of Saint Anthony'', portions of which had been published as early as 1857. He devoted much of his time to an ongoing project, ''Les Deux Cloportes (The Two Woodlice)'', which later became ''Bouvard et Pécuchet'', breaking the obsessive project only to write the '' Three Tales'' in 1877. This book comprises three stories: ''Un Cœur simple'' (''A Simple Heart''), ''La Légende de Saint-Julien l'Hospitalier'' (''The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller

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