industrial revolution
urbanization, city vs. country

material progress,
rise of the middle class: bourgeoisie,
liberalism, free enterprise

but also development of the working class,
 the proletariat (poverty, dependancy)
Marx and Engels: socialism (equality)

science and technology:
steam power
photography
architecture
railways
advances in medicine and hygiene
 

Realism

antithesis to romanticism
focus on “truth” rather than the fantastic,
on “what is” (the real)
 rather than “what should be” (the ideal)

the novel, rather than poetry
the novelist as sociologist
focus on contemporary society, not past
expansion of literary themes:
now includes the low, the disgusting, the trivial
describes the lives of “ordinary people, common folks”

idea of objectivity in narration
(author shows rather than tells)
but: problem of selection, representation
“objective” documentation vs. art
 

Flaubert

(1821 – 1880)

the quintessential realist
advocate of objectivity
but also: “Madame Bovary, c’est moi!”
many elements of Romanticism

son of a Rouen surgeon
nervous disorder / epilepsy
life in Croisset, near Rouen
trips to Paris, Greece, Syria, Egypt

1857 Madame Bovary
more than 5 years of hard work,
constant rewrites
Flaubert the stylist
“l’art pour l’art” – art for art’s sake
search for “le mot juste”
(the right word)
use of exact detail in descriptions

on the human condition
psychology
(love, illusions, shattered dreams, fantasy,
mediocrity, boredom, lying, infidelity, …)

scandal, trial because of
“offense to public and religious morality and to good morals”
acquitted