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Flaubert Lecture 4 - Bêtise and the Art of Writing
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Notes on a lecture about Flaubert's overall approach to the concepts of science and ignorance in his literary project.
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Flaubert Lecture 4- cliché + bêtise > because language = a worn-out medium. But can be transcended
through Art?
- Valéry > language as worn-out banknote > worn out + dirty > has been handed
down : also what gives it its value. Flaubert : chaudron fêlé > have to deal with it as
an imperfect medium.
- Cliché / stereotype (not as linked to language) > but mindless repetition concepts
and language are linked, hard distinguish between the 2.
- Visual copying, mindless repetition of a form in MB > Binet’s wooden napkin rings.
In ES > L’Art Industriel > mechanically reproduced art to sell. Question of photogra-
phy as Art? Flaubert : mechanical reproduction. Also Bouvard + Péruchet = human
photocopiers.
- Flaubert goes beyond cliché by Framing or Citation : goal of rewriting bêtises that
he has heard > framing them. Helps deal with banality of language > collects exam-
ples of it. Uses citations sans guillemets > hard to know who enunciator is > repeat-
ing cliché framed in work of art counteracts it > uses style indirect libre > reported
speech + thought, moves things into the past. Romantic clichés of Léon + Emma in-
vade the 3rd person of the narrator, who is impersonal, limited focalisation, not om-
niscient.
- Use of dialogism > novel is space of dialogue, between different genres (poems, ar-
ticles, political speech, different types of language). SIL = crucial tool in personality
author, allows distance from events.
- BUT creates Cretan Liar Paradox (Prenderghast) > novels in human language telling
us that novels in human language = problematic. Parrots are the key > learn human
language through repetition > Flaubert does it, repetition provides ironic distancing.
Flaubert escapes by framing, but also by subverting naïve reality.
- Read as realist, but realism should only be “tremplin”. Hates realists thinking that
can represent real in plausible way. Realists position selves in opposition bourgeois
pol + art, and reject lyricism of romanticism. Flaubert renews romanticism with this,
subverts details of realism to return to beauty of lyricism > through the impersonal-
ity of the author > not expressing personal feelings, disseminating them into char-
acters who don’t think like him.
- Also uses limited variable focalisation > perspective = reduced. (still some lyrical
identification in MB). But writes about mediocre world without identifying with it.
- Also rejection certainty + narrative frustration > parodies realist certainty. Not have
neat binaries and antithetical characters like Balzac. Narrative frustration > we
search for meaning in characters + places + events (Charles looking for Emma in
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