Alan William Raitt

Flaubert, Trois Contes

Biography of Auguste, comte de Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, in full Auguste-Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe, comte de (count of) Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, French poet, dramatist, and short-story writer whose work reflects a revolt against naturalism and a combination of Romantic idealism and cruel sensuality. His hatred of the mediocrity of a materialistic age and his compelling personality made a considerable impression on later writers.

The Life of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam

It is well known that Flaubert harboured an obsessive hatred of the bourgeois and his mentality which erupts constantly and explosively in his correspondence, informs large parts of the works set in his own time, Madame Bovary, L'Education sentimentale, Un Coeur simple and Bouvard et Pecuchet and even overflows into Salammbo and his theatrical experiments. Since most of his thought and writing is so visibly and vitally affected by this obsession, it seems valuable to investigate its origins, its development and its significance for his art. That is the aim of this study which begins with a look at representations of the bourgeois in French literature before Flaubert and goes on to examine in detail what proves to be a more complex phenomenon than might at first sight appear.

Flaubert and the Bourgeois Mentality

Gustavus Flaubertus Bourgeoisophobus

L'Éducation sentimentale, begun in 1843 and finished after two substantial interruptions in 1845, was Flaubert's first attempt at a full-scale novel. Though overshadowed by the 1869 novel of the same title, it is a crucially important text in Flaubert's literary development. Alan Raitt provides a controversial new reading of the book's genesis and development, and addresses many of the misapprehensions that have grown up around this pivotal work.

A Study of the 1845 Éducation Sentimentale

Flaubert's First Novel

Michael J. Freeman

Mike Freeman

This book brings together in one volume essays by leading scholars in the field of nineteenth-century literature and art, all of whom have been associated with Alan Raitt as either colleagues or pupils. It also includes an essay by the novelist Julian Barnes. This is a tribute to a scholar with a truly international reputation who is one of Britain's leading authorities on the nineteenth century.

Alan William Raitt

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