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The Significance of the Dog in Flaubert's Education Sentimentale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Marianne Bonwit*
Affiliation:
University of California

Extract

Every life is said to contain enough material to fill one novel; but Gustave Flaubert attempted three times to give some account of his adolescence; at the age of seventeen he finished Les Mémoires d'un Fou (1838), at twenty-one Novembre (1842), at twenty-four the first version of L'Education sentimentale. The first two novels he struck off rapidly; the last occupied him for two years.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1947

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References

1 Gustave Flaubert, Correspondance, éd. Conard (Paris, 1926), ii, 343; January 16, 1852.

2 Flaubert, Œuvres de jeunesse inédites, iii (Paris, 1910), 252.

3 Ibid., p. 255.

4 L. Bertrand, Gustave Flaubert (Paris, 1914), p. 186.

5 Ibid., p. 185.

6 A. Coleman, Flaubert's literary development in the light of his ‘Mémoires d'un Fou,’ ‘Novembre’ and ‘Education sentimentale’ of 1845, “Elliott Monographs” (Baltimore, Paris, 1914), p. 79.

7,8 Ibid., p. 82, The (log's looks and behavior are qualified as “genuinely dog-like.”

9 Flaubert, Œuvres de jeunesse inédites, iii (Paris, 1910), 264-265 and passim.

10 L. P. Shanks, Flaubert's Youth (Baltimore, 1927), p. 196.

11 D. L. Demorest, L'Expression figurée et symbolique dans l'œuvre de G. Flaubert (Paris, 1931), p. 220.

12 Flaubert, Œuvres de jeunesse inédites, iii (Paris, 1910), 243.

13 Ibid., pp. 244-245.

14 Ibid., p. 245.

15 Ibid., p. 256.

16 Ibid., p. 266.

17 Ibid., p. 270.

18 L. P. Shanks, op. cit., p. 212.

19 Demorest, D. L., op. cit., p. 220.

20 Flaubert, Œuvres de jeunesse inédites, iii (Paris, 1910), p. 248.

21 Ibid., p. 249.

22 Ibid., p. 250. (Italics mine.)

23 A. Coleman, op. cit., p. 80.

24 E. and J. de Goncourt, Journal, v (Paris, 1891), entry of December 17, 1873.

Il (Flaubert) risquait sa vie, au milieu des précipices d'une falaise, pour embrasser un chien de Terre-Neuve, appelé Thabor, à une certaine place, où sa maîtresse avait l'habitude de déposer un baiser.

M. Du Camp, Souvenirs littéraires, ii (Paris, 1892), p. 338:

Il (Flaubert) l'embrassait et lui racontait l'amour qu'il éprouvait pour sa maltresse en termes tels que le toutou se serait mis à aboyer s'il avait pu comprendre.—It is noteworthy that in the tale Rage et impuissance (1836), Flaubert used the name ‘Fox’ for a dog which is the companion and, to some extent, the prophet of the hero's misfortunes.

25 Flaubert, Madame Bovary, éd. Conard (Paris, 1910), p. 17.

26 Idem, Salammbô, éd. Conard (Paris, 1910) p. 253.

D. L. Demorest (op. cit., p. 493) draws attention to these two images, comparing them with those in Flaubert's early works, especially in La Peste à Florence.

27 Flaubert, Trois Contes, éd. Conard (Paris, 1910), p. 24.

28 Flaubert, Correspondance, ii, 344; January 16, 1852.