Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters By: George Sand (1804-1876) |
---|
![]()
Translated by A.L. McKenzie (1921) Introduction by Stuart Sherman PREFATORY NOTE This translation of the correspondence between George Sand and
Gustave Flaubert was undertaken in consequence of a suggestion by
Professor Stuart P. Sherman. The translator desires to acknowledge
valuable criticism given by Professor Sherman, Ruth M. Sherman, and
Professor Kenneth McKenzie, all of whom have generously assisted in
revising the manuscript. A. L. McKenzie INTRODUCTION The correspondence of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert, if
approached merely as a chapter in the biographies of these heroes of
nineteenth century letters, is sufficiently rewarding. In a
relationship extending over twelve years, including the trying
period of the Franco Prussian War and the Commune, these
extraordinary personalities disclose the aspects of their diverse
natures which are best worth the remembrance of posterity. However
her passionate and erratic youth may have captivated our
grandfathers, George Sand in the mellow autumn of her life is for us
at her most attractive phase. The storms and anguish and hazardous
adventures that attended the defiant unfolding of her spirit are
over. In her final retreat at Nohant, surrounded by her affectionate
children and grandchildren, diligently writing, botanizing, bathing
in her little river, visited by her friends and undistracted by the
fiery lovers of the old time, she shows an unguessed wealth of
maternal virtue, swift, comprehending sympathy, fortitude, sunny
resignation, and a goodness of heart that has ripened into wisdom.
For Flaubert, too, though he was seventeen years her junior, the
flamboyance of youth was long since past; in 1862, when the
correspondence begins, he was firmly settled, a shy, proud, grumpy
toiling hermit of forty, in his family seat at Croisset, beginning
his seven years' labor at L'Education Sentimentale, master of his
art, hardening in his convictions, and conscious of increasing
estrangement from the spirit of his age. He, with his craving for
sympathy, and she, with her inexhaustible supply of it, meet; he
pours out his bitterness, she her consolation; and so with equal
candor of self revelation they beautifully draw out and strengthen
each the other's characteristics, and help one another grow old. But there is more in these letters than a satisfaction for the
biographical appetite, which, indeed, finds ITS account rather in
the earlier chapters of the correspondents' history. What impresses
us here is the banquet spread for the reflective and critical
faculties in this intercourse of natural antagonists. As M. Faguet
observes in a striking paragraph of his study of Flaubert: "It is a curious thing, which does honor to them both, that Flaubert
and George Sand should have become loving friends towards the end of
their lives. At the beginning, Flaubert might have been looked upon
by George Sand as a furious enemy. Emma [Madame Bovary] is George
Sand's heroine with all the poetry turned into ridicule. Flaubert
seems to say in every page of his work: 'Do you want to know what is
the real Valentine, the real Indiana, the real Lelia? Here she is,
it is Emma Roualt.' 'And do you want to know what becomes of a woman
whose education has consisted in George Sand's books? Here she is,
Emma Roualt.' So that the terrible mocker of the bourgeois has
written a book which is directly inspired by the spirit of the 1840
bourgeois. Their recriminations against romanticism 'which
rehabilitates and poetises the courtesan,' against George Sand, the
Muse of Adultery, are to be found in acts and facts in Madame
Bovary." Now, the largest interest of this correspondence depends precisely
upon the continuance, beneath an affectionate personal relationship,
of a fundamental antagonism of interests and beliefs, resolutely
maintained on both sides. George Sand, with her lifelong passion for
propaganda and reformation, labors earnestly to bring Flaubert to
her point of view, to remould him nearer to her heart's desire... Continue reading book >>
|
This book is in genre |
---|
Literature |
eBook links |
---|
Wikipedia – George Sand |
Wikipedia – The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters |
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|