Selected Works of Flaubert

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Publish Date: 2003-08-01
Features: Flaubert lived during the height of Romanticism in France. In his childhood, his most admired writer was Victor Hugo, and thus, in his early novels, there often appeared elements of Romanticism. In 1836, Flaubert accompanied his parents to Trouville for a summer holiday. One day, while walking along the beach, he met a mysterious and melancholic woman and fell deeply in love with her. Two years later, this young man, who had secretly loved her, wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, The Diary of a Madman, filled with romantic emotions, describing his obsessive passion and melancholic feelings. The Echoes of Autumn, written in 1842, can be considered the culmination of his early works. This novel tells the story of a lonely and troubled young man who eagerly longs to experience the taste of love, but instead encounters a prostitute. After their separation, the young man remains unable to forget her and eventually dies of melancholy. The entire novel is permeated with a bitter and somber atmosphere, expressing Flaubert's anxieties and sorrows. Flaubert's greatest breakthrough in the art of realistic fiction came from completely eliminating subjective lyrical elements in his works, establishing what is known as the "purely objective" art. Through his artistic practice, he demonstrated that profound criticism of reality could be achieved through skillful combinations of force, rather than direct emotional expression. This writing method, which maintains a certain distance between the author and the work, with its objective and detached style, had a profound influence on later French literature. As a result, Flaubert gained fame in the 20th century and was revered by contemporary literary critics as a pioneer of modernist art.
When writing about Madame Bovary, Flaubert focused not on her love story, but on her journey from innocence to (destruction), revealing the causes and consequences of how capitalist society harms humanity, corrupts souls, and even consumes people. With a cold and sharp pen, Flaubert created vivid characters, exposing the ugliness of so-called prominent figures in a money-driven society, carrying strong realistic critique. Madame Bovary caused a stir in society upon its release and became a masterpiece of 19th-century critical realism literature.