Editing Gustave Flaubert (section)

==Life==

===Early life and education===
[[File:Музей Флобера.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Flaubert's birthplace in [[Rouen]], now a museum]]

Flaubert was born in [[Rouen]], in the [[Seine-Maritime]] department of [[Upper Normandy]], in northern France. He was the second son of Anne Justine Caroline (née Fleuriot; 1793–1872) and Achille-Cléophas Flaubert (1784–1846), director and senior surgeon of the major hospital in Rouen.<ref>"Gustave Flaubert's Life", ''Madame Bovary'', Alma Classics edition, p. 309, publ 2010, {{ISBN|978-1-84749-322-4}}</ref> He began writing at an early age, as early as eight according to some sources.<ref>Gustave Flaubert, ''The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830–1857'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980) {{ISBN|0-674-52636-8}}</ref>

He was educated at the [[Lycée Pierre-Corneille]] in Rouen,<ref name="LyCo6">[http://lgcorneille-lyc.spip.ac-rouen.fr/spip.php?article6 Lycée Pierre Corneille de Rouen – History]</ref> and did not leave until 1840, whereupon he went to [[Paris]] to study [[law]]. In Paris, he was an indifferent student and found the city distasteful. He made a few acquaintances, including [[Victor Hugo]]. Toward the end of 1840, he traveled in the [[Pyrenees]] and [[Corsica]].<ref name=EB1911/> In 1846, after an attack of [[epilepsy]], he left Paris and abandoned the study of law.

===Personal life===
From 1846 to 1854, Flaubert had a relationship with the poet [[Louise Colet]]; [[Flaubert's letters|his letters]] to her survived.<ref name=EB1911/> After leaving Paris, he returned to Croisset, near the [[Seine]], close to Rouen, and lived there for the rest of his life. He did however make occasional visits to Paris and England, where he apparently had a mistress.

Politically, Flaubert described himself as a "romantic and liberal old dunce" ({{lang|fr|vieille ganache romantique et libérale}}),<ref>{{cite book |title=The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.169388 |date=1921 |publisher=Boni and Liveright |page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.169388/page/n328 284]}}</ref> an "enraged [[liberalism|liberal]]" ({{lang|fr|libéral enragé}}), a hater of all despotism, and one who celebrated every protest of the individual against power and monopolies.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weisberg |first1=Richard H. |title=The Failure of the Word: The Protagonist as Lawyer in Modern Fiction |date=1984 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=89}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Séginger |first1=Gisèle |title=Le Roman de la Momie et Salammbô. Deux romans archéologiques contre l'Histoire |journal=Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé |date=2005 |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=135–151|doi=10.3406/bude.2005.3651 }}</ref>

With his lifelong friend [[Maxime Du Camp]], he traveled in [[Brittany]] in 1846.<ref name=EB1911/> In 1849–50 he went on a long journey to the Middle East, visiting [[Greece]] and Egypt. In [[Beirut]] he contracted [[syphilis]]. He spent five weeks in [[Istanbul]] in 1850. He visited [[Carthage]] in 1858 to conduct research for his novel ''[[Salammbô]]''.

Flaubert did not marry or have children. In a 1852 letter to Colet, he explained his reasons for not wanting children, saying he would "transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence".

Flaubert was very open about his sexual activities with prostitutes in his travel writings. He suspected that a [[chancre]] on his penis was from a [[Maronite]] or a [[Turkish people|Turkish]] girl.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJE5-qdSFT4C&pg=PR2|title=Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary: a reference guide|author=Laurence M. Porter, Eugène F. Gray|year=2002|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|page=xxiii|isbn=0-313-31916-2|access-date=7 August 2010}}</ref> He also engaged in intercourse with male prostitutes in Beirut and Egypt; in one of his letters, he describes a "pockmarked young rascal wearing a white turban".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/flaubertinegypts00flau|url-access=registration|title=Flaubert in Egypt: a sensibility on tour : a narrative drawn from Gustave Flaubert's travel notes & letters|author=Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmüller|year=1996|publisher=Penguin Classics|page=[https://archive.org/details/flaubertinegypts00flau/page/203 203]|isbn=0-14-043582-4|access-date=7 August 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofgustave0001flau|url-access=registration|title=The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830–1857|author=Gustave Flaubert, Francis Steegmüller|year=1980|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/lettersofgustave0001flau/page/121 121]|isbn=0-674-52636-8|access-date=7 August 2010}}</ref>

According to his biographer Émile Faguet, his affair with Louise Colet was his only serious romantic relationship.<ref>{{cite book | title=The desert and the dancing girls | year=2005 | last=Flaubert | first=Gustave | publisher = [[Penguin books]] | isbn=0-14-102223-X| pages=10–12}}</ref>

Flaubert was a diligent worker and often complained in his letters to friends about the strenuous nature of his work. He was close to his niece, Caroline Commanville, and had a close friendship and correspondence with [[George Sand]]. He occasionally visited Parisian acquaintances, including [[Émile Zola]], [[Alphonse Daudet]], [[Ivan Turgenev]], and [[Edmond de Goncourt|Edmond]] and [[Jules de Goncourt]].

The 1870s were a difficult time for Flaubert. Prussian soldiers occupied his house during the [[Franco-Prussian War|War of 1870]], and his mother died in 1872. After her death, he fell into financial difficulty due to business failures on the part of his niece's husband. Flaubert lived with [[sexually transmitted disease|venereal diseases]] most of his life. His health declined and he died at Croisset of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1880 at the age of 58. He was buried in the family vault in the cemetery of Rouen. A monument to him by [[Henri Chapu]] was unveiled at the museum of Rouen.<ref name=EB1911/>

===Writing career===
[[File:Gustave Flaubert par Pierre François Eugène Giraud.jpg |thumb|Portrait by [[Eugène Giraud]], {{circa}} 1856]]
His first finished work was ''[[November (novella)|November]]'', a novella, which was completed in 1842.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brown |first=Frederick |title=Flaubert: a Biography |publisher=Little, Brown |year=2006 |isbn=0-316-11878-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/flaubertbiograph00brow/page/115 115] |url=https://archive.org/details/flaubertbiograph00brow/page/115 }}</ref>

In September 1849, Flaubert completed the first version of a novel, ''[[The Temptation of Saint Anthony (novel)|The Temptation of Saint Anthony]]''. He read the novel aloud to [[Louis Bouilhet]] and [[Maxime Du Camp]] over the course of four days, not allowing them to interrupt or give any opinions. At the end of the reading, his friends told him to throw the manuscript in the fire, suggesting instead that he focus on day-to-day life rather than fantastic subjects.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-redemption-of-saint-anthony/ |title=The Redemption of Saint Anthony |last=Dickey |first=Colin |date=7 March 2013 |website=The Public Domain Review  |access-date=9 December 2019}}</ref>

In 1850, after returning from Egypt, Flaubert began work on ''[[Madame Bovary]]''. The novel, which took five years to write, was serialized in the ''[[Revue de Paris]]'' in 1856. The government brought an action against the publisher and author on the charge of immorality,<ref name=EB1911/> which was heard during the following year, but both were acquitted. When ''Madame Bovary'' appeared in book form, it met with a warm reception.

In 1858, Flaubert travelled to [[Carthage]] to gather material for his next novel, ''[[Salammbô]]''. The novel was completed in 1862 after four years of work.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://heritage.bnf.fr/bibliothequesorient/en/gustave-flaubert-art |title=Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) |last=Basch |first=Sophie |website=BnF Shared Heritage |publisher=[[Bibliothèque nationale de France]] |access-date=9 December 2019 }}</ref>

Drawing on his youth, Flaubert next wrote ''L'Éducation sentimentale'' (''[[Sentimental Education]]''), an effort that took seven years. This was his last complete novel, published in the year 1869. The story focuses on the romantic life of a young man named Frédéric Moreau at the time of the French Revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XCu5VDIzZM4C |title=Essentials of World Literature |last1=Hopper |first1=Vincent F. |last2=Grebanier |first2=Bernard |year=1952 |publisher=Barron's Educational Series |isbn=978-0-8120-0222-5 |pages=482 }}</ref>

In the 1870s, Flaubert wrote an unsuccessful drama, ''Le Candidat'', and he published a reworked version of ''The Temptation of Saint Anthony'', portions of which had been published as early as 1857. He devoted much of his time to an ongoing project, ''Les Deux Cloportes'' (''The Two Woodlice''), which later became ''[[Bouvard et Pécuchet]]'', breaking the obsessive project only to write the ''[[Three Tales (Flaubert)|Three Tales]]'' between 1875 and 1877. This book comprises three stories: ''Un Cœur simple'' (''A Simple Heart''), ''La Légende de Saint-Julien l'Hospitalier'' (''The Legend of St. [[Julian the Hospitaller]]''), and ''Hérodias'' (''Herodias''). After the publication of the stories, he spent the remainder of his life toiling on ''Bouvard et Pécuchet'', the unfinished version of which was posthumously published in 1881. It was a grand satire on the futility of human knowledge and the ubiquity of mediocrity.<ref name=EB1911/> Flaubert believed the work to be his masterpiece, though the novel received only a very small print run and mostly lukewarm reviews. 

Flaubert was a prolific letter writer, and his letters have been collected in several publications.

At the time of his death, he may have been working on a further historical novel, based on the [[Battle of Thermopylae]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Otto |last=Patzer |title=Unwritten Works of Flaubert |journal=Modern Language Notes |volume=41 |issue=1 |date=January 1926 |pages=24–29|jstor=2913889|doi=10.2307/2913889 }}</ref>