Flaubert

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani places Flaubert among the great realist novelists who saw social classes1. He reads above all Sentimental Education as the coming-of-age novel of the Romantic generation. In it, Frédéric Moreau moves from naive idealism to disillusionment, even bitterness23. He links it to Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, a "sentimental education before the term existed"4. He places Flaubert in a line of poetic prose that starts with Rousseau, and he already hears a tone "à la Flaubert," bitter and self-ironic, in the ending of Nerval's Sylvie5. He comes back several times to The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller: a hunter who begins with a slaughter becomes a saint through pity. He sees it as Parsifal in reverse order, even though Flaubert is "nothing of a holy roller"67. He also mentions Salammbô as "a sip of lyricism" that makes a change from pessimism. Finally, he cites Sartre's reading of Flaubert as a way to think about the bourgeoisie, and the view of Clouscard's publisher that Flaubert's critique of the bourgeois misses its target.

1. 1Que faire ? 3/329 Jan 2016 · 1:04:24
2. 2#5.2 bis FaceBookLive / Questions (1)6 Dec 2018 · 7:16
3. 3JE ne suis pas celui que vous croyez - L'identité introuvable4 Jan 2024 · 10:52
4. 4#1 Mignon ou le chant du silence7 Apr 2021 · 27:44
5. 5#4.5 Angélique (de Nerval)12 Feb 2018 · 54:00
6. 6La quête du Graal, bondieuserie ou sacrilège ?1 Apr 2024 · 37:57
7. 7La quête du Graal, bondieuserie ou sacrilège ?1 Apr 2024 · 1:26:02

Summary produced automatically from 39 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.