Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

By Laura Wilson

Early Life • Born in Rouen, France on 12 December

1821• Born into a family of Doctors• 5 Siblings

• Started writing at the age of 14

• Brilliant/talented student

• Sad upbringing• Gustave was very lonely and turned to

writing and literature as a way to cope

• Epilepsy(?)• When Gustave was 22 years old he started

having fits in which we think today was most likely episepsy

Education • 1830s-attended College Royal de

Rouen• Writing for the newspaper• Read shakespear• Fell in love with Elisa Schlesinger

• She was an older women and married

• 1840-unseccesfully studied Law in Paris • His parents wanted him to become a

lawyer

• Traveled while writing

Madame Bovary• Madame Bovary was published in 1856 when

Gustave got back from Egypt. It took him 5 years to write.

• Gustave was put on trial for the context that was in the book• The realism of the character and the explicit

context was very new to the French people. • Gustave ended up winning the trial• After that his novel was well received by the

public and became his most famous novel

• “Bovarysm”• Madame Bovary was the first novel to be called

Bovarysm• Bovarysm means escaping, dreaming, as if the

reader is being sucked into the story, or plot, and therefore ignores reality

What made his writing great?• Gustave had many forms of writing style

• French Poet• Essayist• Art critic

• Psychological analysis• The characters in his novels had a depth within them.

• Perfectionist • Gustave was very particular about what he wrote. Most of

his novels and books took him many years at a time to write.

• Realism• The characters in his novels had an aspect of realism to

them. They would be characters that one could imagine as real or even relate to.

Accurate look at behavior• Individuals • Society

Other Novels

• The Temptation of Saint Anthony – 1857

• Salammbô – 1862• 4 years

• L'Éducation sentimentale – 1869• 7 years

Later Life

• In 1870 Flaubert became very sick. His health declined.• Ironically after all of his explicit novels he

got syphilis which is an STD

• He died from a brain hemorrhage in 1880

• Buried Rouen Cemetery in Normandy

• The realistic/romantic writer is still read today and the influences of Madame Bovary and some of his other writings, no doubt, changed the way people not only read, but wrote as well. He was a catalyst for French literature and realism.