The Cambridge Companion to French Literature ed. by John D. Lyons (review)

Flaubert fleshed out his novel, noting such details as the contrast between Flaubertsc énariste and Flaubert-romancier (50); the role his friends played in shaping the manuscripts; and his belief that le véritable écrivain is able, “sans sortir d’un même sujet,” to “faire en dix volumes ou en trois pages, une narration, une description, une analyse et un dialogue” (72–73). Of particular note is section 2, which examines the passages that the editor of La Revue de Paris (where the work was published en feuilleton) targeted for suppression, material that Flaubert would reinstate in the book version in order to “éterniser la bêtise du Censeur, garder une trace indélébile de cet ‘autre livre’ que Laurent-Pichat lui refaisait en défaisant le sien” (94–95), thus becoming the first author to inscribe, retrospectively,“dans le corps même du livre l’un des moments douloureux de sa genèse, ou de son antigenèse” (95). Flaubert’s use of style indirect libre along with his principle of impersonality amounted, from the legal perspective, to “la forme extrême de l’irresponsabilité narrative” (130). According to Leclerc, the reason Emma’s infidelity proved so scandalous was that Flaubert used the word adultery,eleven times,with nary a“condamnation morale”(153).Contemporaries offered suggestions for improving the novel: Flaubert should make Charles “plus intelligent et moins vulgaire”or broaden the role of Mme Homais (or that of Charles’s mother, deemed by one writer the only likable character, a potential antidote for the novel’s“poison”[142]) or include“une âme”instead of showing only bodies (141). The centerpiece of the final section is a discussion of bovarysme (coined by Jules de Gaultier in 1892), bovarystes (dames—Flaubert’s term—who defended not the male writer but the female character, and male artists who defended the work, not the heroine [178]), and bovaryque (used in the context of psychopathology) (182). The book is replete with “fun facts”: Emma’s name was initially to be Marie (36) and Charles’s casquette, a bonnet de police (38); Flaubert considered “un épilogue grandiose, d’un fantastique quasi borgésien: Homais se demande s’il existe vraiment, ou s’il n’est pas plutôt écrit par quelqu’un” (54). Even if the final chapter, which reads the novel against Les fleurs du mal, seems tacked on, and if Leclerc appears to have made little effort to weed out repetitions that inevitably arise when individual essays are compiled, there is no underestimating the significance of this project and of the availability of the materials on which it is based. University of Arkansas Hope Christiansen Lyons, John D., ed. The Cambridge Companion to French Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2016. ISBN 978-1-107-66522-4. Pp. 284. In brief remarks, Lyons sets out the principles underlying this ambitious project: rather than think in terms of survey, contributors were encouraged to share“personal and perhaps even controversial insights into this living and evolving literary tradition” 202 FRENCH REVIEW 91.3 Reviews 203 (2). Readers, in turn, are invited to view individual essays, in whatever order they wish, as so many “windows onto French literature over the ages” (2). The sixteen chapters do trace a progression that is generally chronological, from Karen Sullivan’s opening treatment of medieval romance and lyrical poetry to Warren Motte’s closing sample of what the new millennium has offered to date in the way of the French novel. But in between, the focus of most chapters is thematic, broadly speaking, rather than periodspecific . In a number of instances, chapter titles provide at least a general indication of period and/or topic, whether it be “Galant culture” (by Elizabeth C. Goldsmith), “Tragedy and fear” (Lyons), “Varieties of doubt in early modern writing” (Michael Moriarty),“Nature and Enlightenment”(CarolineWarman),“The literary-philosophical essay”(Ian James),“The renewal of narrative in the wake of Proust”(Edward J.Hughes), or certainly “Literature and sex,” Elisabeth Ladenson’s entertaining essay, which emphasizes the enduring impact of Sade’s work. The “windows” opened by some contributions provide vistas that can be sweeping in scope. Jennifer Yee’s look at “Exoticism and colonialism...