Emotional Education -- Illustrated Book Famous Translation

Author: Gustave Flaubert (as translated by Wang Wenrong)
Publisher:
Publish Date: March 1, 2004
Features: Madame Bovary was published in 1869 and is another long novel by the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880), following Madame Bovary (1857). Flaubert was born in Rouen, France, and both his father and older brother were surgeons. He was melancholic, precocious, unrestrained, and full of romanticism. From a young age, he was passionate about literature and read extensively, beginning to write stories in his middle school years. In 1836, while vacationing at Trouville Beach, he met Elisa, the wife of the music publisher and founder of Le Journal de Musique, Schlesinger, and fell deeply in love with her at first sight. This woman, eleven years his senior, inspired him to write The Memoirs of a Madman (1838) and November (1842), and she became the prototype for the character of Madame Arnoux in Madame Bovary.
After graduating from high school in 1841, Flaubert attended the Paris Law School as his parents wished. In 1844, he suffered a sudden attack of epilepsy and had to interrupt his studies. Two years later, both his father and sister passed away, and he settled with his mother and niece in Croisset, near Rouen. From then on, he lived off his inheritance and devoted himself entirely to literary work. Madame Bovary was drafted between 1843 and 1845, but Flaubert was not satisfied with it and set it aside. In September 1864, he began writing a second draft, which he completed in May 1869. The subtitle of the novel is The Story of a Young Man.
The protagonist, Frederic Moreau, comes from a provincial bourgeois family and comes to Paris at the age of eighteen to study law. However, he is deeply interested in literature and the arts. He attempts to write novels and waltz melodies and even studies painting, but abandons all these pursuits halfway through. He falls deeply in love with the wife of the art dealer, Madame Arnoux. Although she does not love her husband, she adheres to the virtues of a wife. Eventually, she is moved by Moreau’s devotion and agrees to meet him. In February 1848, the Paris Revolution breaks out. Moreau, in order to keep his appointment, does not join the public procession. However, Madame Arnoux is unable to meet him because her son suddenly contracts diphtheria. In despair, Moreau throws himself into the arms of the courtesan Rosanette. They live together and have a son, but the child dies young. Moreau associates with the aristocratic industrialist Duval, and to enter high society, he becomes the lover of Duval’s wife. After the industrialist’s death, they plan to marry. However, at the auction of the furniture of the bankrupt Arnoux family, Duval’s wife’s actions deeply wound Moreau’s heart, and he cuts ties with her.
Moreau returns to his hometown in utter despair, still holding onto a sliver of hope: to marry Louise, the rural girl who has always loved him. But on the church square, he unexpectedly encounters Louise marrying his old classmate, Duroy. Humiliated, Moreau returns to Paris. One evening in 1867, Madame Arnoux suddenly visits him, and the two are filled with emotion as they confess their feelings. She cuts a lock of her white hair to give to Moreau as a keepsake and bids him farewell.