Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Explore the life of Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) — French realist novelist, master of style, author of Madame Bovary. Learn about his biography, aesthetics, major works, influence, and memorable quotations.

Introduction

Gustave Flaubert stands as a towering figure in 19th-century French literature. While many novelists use plot or sentiment to draw readers in, Flaubert’s ambition was more exacting: he aimed for stylistic perfection and a dispassionate presentation of life. He is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of literary realism in France, whose single-minded devotion to language has influenced generations of writers.

His most famous novel, Madame Bovary (1857), caused a scandal for its portrayal of adultery and bourgeois hypocrisy—but its legacy is immense. Beyond Bovary, Flaubert wrote with painstaking care, producing works such as L’Éducation sentimentale, Salammbô, Three Tales, and the unfinished Bouvard et Pécuchet.

Early Life and Family

Gustave Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821 in Rouen, in Normandy, France. Achille-Cléophas Flaubert, was a senior surgeon and the director of the hospital in Rouen, and his mother was Anne Justine Caroline Fleuriot.

He was one of several siblings, though some died young.

As a boy, he showed literary inclinations early—writing small works, reading widely, and developing a sensitivity to language. Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen before eventually moving to Paris to study law (a path his parents preferred), though he never fully embraced legal studies.

Formative Years & Travels

In 1840, Flaubert relocated to Paris to pursue legal studies, but he was disenchanted with city life and formal academia.

With his friend Maxime Du Camp, Flaubert traveled through Brittany and elsewhere in 1846. Near East (Italy, Greece, Egypt, Beirut, Istanbul), which influenced his later writing, especially in his interest in exotic and historical settings.

During these travels, he contracted syphilis and grappled with recurring health issues.

After his travels, he settled in Croisset (near Rouen), a place he remained for much of the rest of his life.

He remained unmarried and had no children—a decision he rationalized in a letter: he would “transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence.”

Literary Career & Major Works

Method, Style & Aesthetic Ideals

Flaubert is famous for his commitment to “le mot juste” (the right word). He strove never to use vague or clichéd expression, revising tirelessly until each sentence satisfied him. “present everywhere and visible nowhere.”

He often spent days perfecting a single page, rejecting drafts, and rethinking sentences until they aligned with his precise and, at times, severe standards.

His method favored objectivity, emotional restraint, and structural rigor—even when depicting passionate or tragic content. He rejected sentimentality or overexplication, preferring the reader to feel rather than be told.

Thus Flaubert is often placed as a central figure in literary realism, though his affinities also overlap with Romanticism in his sensibility and use of symbolism.

Principal Works

• Madame Bovary (1857): Flaubert’s masterpiece, the story of Emma Bovary, an idealistic woman dissatisfied with provincial life who seeks romantic and material escape. Upon serial publication, it sparked a legal trial for immorality, though Flaubert and his publisher were acquitted.

• Salammbô (1862): A historical novel set in Carthage after the First Punic War, richly detailed in ancient setting and atmosphere.

• L’Éducation sentimentale (The Sentimental Education, 1869): A novel chronicling the life and romantic disappointments of Frédéric Moreau in the volatile political context of mid-19th-century France.

• Three Tales (1877): A collection of short works: Un cœur simple (A Simple Heart), La Légende de Saint-Julien l’Hospitalier, Hérodias.

• Bouvard et Pécuchet (unfinished, published posthumously in 1881): A satirical work about two clerks who, after retirement, attempt various projects in agriculture, science, literature, but fail due to their superficial approach. Flaubert saw it as a culmination of his reflections on human folly.

• The Temptation of Saint Anthony (various versions, from ~1849 onward): A work combining fantasy, religious struggle, and imaginative visions.

Flaubert also left rich correspondence, essays, travel notes, and journals, which are valued for their literary and biographical insights.

Later Years, Health & Death

After 1870, Flaubert faced difficulties: the Franco-Prussian War disrupted life in France, and his home in Croisset was occupied by Prussian troops.

He continued his painstaking writing habits, working on Bouvard et Pécuchet, revising earlier works, and writing in correspondence. His health remained precarious: the effects of syphilis, epilepsy, recurring ailments, and possibly complications of his travels took a toll.

On May 8, 1880, Flaubert died at Croisset (near Rouen) of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Legacy & Influence

Flaubert’s influence has been profound, especially in shaping the modern novel as a serious art form. He is admired not just for the power of his narratives but for his discipline, precision, and quest for style.

Many 20th-century and later writers — from Franz Kafka to J. M. Coetzee — have recognized Flaubert’s influence in their attention to tone, restraint, and precision.

His rejection of authorial intrusion and his neutral narrative stance became models for subsequent realist and modernist fiction.

His correspondence and autobiographical writings are also esteemed, offering deep insight into the writer’s mind and his aesthetic struggles.

Today, Flaubert is memorialized in Rouen via the Musée Flaubert et d’Histoire de la Médecine, located in part in his father’s old hospital, showcasing manuscripts, personal effects, and medical instruments linked to his life.

His works remain in print, translated into many languages, taught in literature courses, adapted in film and theater, and continue to provoke reflection on the craft of writing.

Themes, Philosophical Outlook & Literary Concerns

Flaubert’s writing often probes the tension between illusion and reality — characters inhabiting dreams, passions, or romantic ideals, only to collide with the banality or cruelty of life.

He was deeply skeptical of universals: Flaubert distrusted sweeping moral judgments or ideological assertions. He believed in the primacy of the particular, and that the novelist’s duty is to depict — not to preach.

He also explored boredom, hypocrisy, mediocrity, and the frustrations of human desire. In Bouvard et Pécuchet, the futility of attempting to master every discipline highlights human limitations and absurdity.

Moreover, Flaubert wrestled with his own solitude, illness, and creative obsession. His correspondence reveals tensions — between social life and retreat, between public success and private anguish.

He once wrote that an author must be like “God in his book: present everywhere and visible nowhere,” reflecting his belief in authorial restraint.

Famous Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

While Flaubert is more celebrated for his prose style than pithy aphorisms, several lines from his letters and works continue to circulate:

• “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.” (Attribution is perhaps apocryphal, but widely associated with him.)

• “An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.”

• “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”

• “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

• “One must marry for love, and find love through marriage.”

• “The language is worth more than the narrative.”

These express his conviction that style, discipline, and honesty to language matter supremely in literature.

Lessons from Gustave Flaubert

1. Dedication to craft
   Flaubert shows that deep commitment and rigorous self-critique can elevate writing from mere storytelling to art.

2. Precision over grandiosity
   He teaches us that restraint, exactness, and clarity often carry more power than melodrama or sweeping rhetoric.

3. The novelist as observer, not moralizer
   His belief in detachment suggests that truth is better served when the author does not dictate meaning but allows the work to speak.

4. Endurance amid adversity
   Despite illness, criticism, financial pressures, and personal tumult, Flaubert continued refining his art.

5. Legacy beyond plot
   His influence rests not on sensational narrative but on changing how novelists approach language, structure, and authorial presence.

Conclusion

Gustave Flaubert’s life and work offer a compelling portrait of a writer devoted not to fame or popularity, but to the rigorous pursuit of literary perfection. His novels combine realism, psychological insight, and a merciless eye, while his prose demonstrates how deeply the sculpting of language matters. Even today, his voice resonates in every writer who seeks precision, elegance, and authenticity.