Madame Bovary

‘Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings – a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionizes it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.’

A powerful critique of romantic idealism, Madame Bovary is Flaubert’s most famous work. Although controversial at the time of publication due to its ‘obscenity’, the novel became a bestseller, and is considered a masterpiece to this day.

First serialised in 1856, the novel follows the narrative of Emma Bovary, a beautiful yet naiive young woman living in rural France. Her husband, a kind-hearted physician, is committed to his wife, but Emma soon grows listless and dissatisfied with the provincial life he has provided her with. Yearning for passion, excitement and luxury, Emma daringly engages in various affairs, while accumulating enormous debt as she attempts to live a life beyond her means. A moving and tragic tale of misguided idealism, materialism and the bourgeois lifestyle – conveyed through Flaubert’s heartbreakingly detached prose – Madame Bovary is an exemplary example of classic realism.

Gustave Flaubert (1821 – 1880) was a French novelist, famed for being a leading proponent of literary realism. He is renowned for his debut novel, Madame Bovary, and his meticulous approach to writing. Flaubert influenced many key writers in the twentieth century, such as James Joyce and Marcel Proust, and is still widely read today.