Flaubert and His Victorian Critics

FLAUBERT AND HIS VICTORIAN CRITICS DESMOND PACEY No French novelist of the nineteenth century, with the possible ~X­ ception of Balzac, exercised a more important and pervasive influenc;e upon the development of the English novel than did Gustave Flaubert. George. Moore, George Gissing, Henry James, R. L. Stevenson, Joseph · Conrad, Arnold Bennett, Somerset Maugham-all these, together with many minor figures, were inspired by Flaubert's ideals of patient observation, stylistic precision and rhythm, and impassive objectivity. For all this, Flaubert had to wait long for any sort of recognition from the English public and critics; and when such recognition came it was strongly mi.ngled with resentment and abuse. It was not until the middle of the last decade of the century that admiration for his achievements attained any degree of unanim'ity. In this article .I propose to review the course of his English reception up to the close of the Victorian period. . Madame Bovary appeared in France in 1859; but it was not translated into English until 1886.1 The same year saw two rival transl~tions of Sa/ammb8.2 After a gap of nine years, La Tentation.de St. Antoine, Bouvard ! • et Pecuchet, and L'Education sentimentale appeared in quick succession.3 These dates are significant. They indicate that it was not until almost thirty years after Flaubert's achievement of fame in France that English interest in his work was keen enough to warrant the translation of even his greatest novel, but that by the middle of the nineties this interest had grown to such an extent that .as difficult and superficially dull a book as Bou_vard et Pecuchet, could firid an English publisher. These conclusions receive confirmation from an analysis of the interest in Flaubert and his work displayed in contemporary English periodtcals. It was not untill878 that the first article concerned specifically with Flaubert appeared. There were only five such articles in the whole of the following decade, but the same number in the three years 1893-5. More significant than the mere number of articles specifically concerned with Flaubert is the number of references to his work in articles devoted to the study of wider topics. When a writer is constantly called on to illustrate a point, to represent a certain tendency or certain ideals, it is evident that he is quite generally known and that he has achieved· definite status. If there were any such references to Flaubert in the seventies, they were few 1Madamc Bouary, tr. by E. Marx-Aveling (London, Vizetelly, 1886). . 2 Salammb8, tr. by M. French Sheldon (London, Saxon & Co., 1886); Salammbo, tr. by J. S. Chartes (London, Vizetelly, 1886). 3 The Temptation of St. Anthony, with an introduction by D. F. Hannigan (London, H. S. Nichols, 1895); Bouaard and Pecuchet, with an introduction by D. F. Hannigan (London, H. S. Nichols, 1896); A Sentimental Education, with an introduction by D. F. Hannigan (London, H. S. Nichols, 1898). 74 FLAUBERT AND HIS VICTORIAN CRITICS 75 and obscure; after careful search I can point to none. In the eighties there were occasional references to him, their number increasing as the decade progressed. In the nineties, however, Flaubert was referred to constantly; his name appeared in practically every issue of all the leading periodicals; no discussion of the art of fiction-and there were many such discussions in this decade-was complete without an examination of Flaubert's ideals and methods. His reputation was, of course, involved in a wider movement-the controversy over realism and naturalism, which raged in England from the middle of the nineteenth century to its close, but which attained particular intensity in the period 1885-95. In the nineties the balance of critical opinion swung towards realism; as a consequence, Flaubert's reputation was enhanced. In this article, .however, attention will be centred upon the individual reputation of Flaubert. To handle the wider controversy satisfactorily would require larger scope than a single article; and in any case a preliminary investigation of the controversy has already appeared,4 as have monographs on the Victorian reputations of Balzac5 and Zola.6 The main issue which arose in Victorian criticism of Flaubert was whether or not...