![]() ![]() ![]() We will spend some time understanding why Hugo was writing from exile, why Madame Bovary was put on trial. Our goal will be to understand the aesthetic and social ambitions of these two great novels, to read them carefully, and to explore the ways they intervened into their contemporary world. The differences between the novels are perhaps as remarkable as any similarities there might be. Both novels were, in some ways, reactions of revolt by the authors against the world they saw around them. The initial publication of each was a momentous event in its own way: Madame Bovary was put on trial as an offense to public decency shortly after it appeared a huge publicity campaign surrounded the publication of Les Misérables, which appeared while its author was in political exile and was an immediate bestseller. Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856-1857) and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862) would probably be on a lot of people’s lists of the “Best Novels of All Time.” Published only a few years apart, they have both had a huge impact on readers and writers around the world, and have been adapted for radio, for the stage, for television, and for the cinema. Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, translated by Lydia Davis (New York: Penguin Books, 2011). Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, translated by Christine Donougher (New York: Penguin Books, 2015). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |