Editing George Sand (section)

==Criticism==
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 |quote=George Sand was an idea. She has a unique place in our age.<br />Others are great men ... she was a great woman.
 |author=[[Victor Hugo]]
 |source=''Les funérailles de George Sand''<ref>{{cite book |title=Saturday Review |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eYZNeU6DiQAC&pg=PA771 |year=1876 |publisher=Saturday Review |pages=771ff}}</ref>
 |quoted=1
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Sand's writing was immensely popular during her lifetime and she was highly respected by the literary and cultural elite in France. [[Victor Hugo]], in the eulogy he gave at her funeral, said "the [[lyre]] was within her."<ref name="LiviaHall1997">{{cite book |author1=Anna Livia |author2=Kira Hall |title=Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1G_dVlJ2KhcC&pg=PA157 |year=1997 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-535577-2 |pages=157ff}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=In this country whose law is to complete the French Revolution and begin that of the equality of the sexes, being a part of the equality of men, a great woman was needed. It was necessary to prove that a woman could have all the manly gifts without losing any of her angelic qualities, be strong without ceasing to be tender ... George Sand proved it. |author=[[Victor Hugo]] |title=Les funérailles de George Sand |<ref>{{cite book|title=Saturday Review0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eYZNeU6DiQAC&pg=PA771 |year=1876 |publisher=Saturday Review |pages=771ff}}</ref>}}

[[Eugène Delacroix]] was a close friend and respected her literary gifts.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436177 |title=George Sand's Garden at Nohant |access-date=25 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025225511/https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436177 |archive-date=25 October 2018 |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[Gustave Flaubert|Flaubert]] was an unabashed admirer.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Jack |first1=Belinda |title=George Sand |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jack-sand.html |website=archive.nytimes.com |access-date=23 November 2022}}</ref> [[Honoré de Balzac]], who knew Sand personally, once said that if someone thought she wrote badly, it was because their own standards of criticism were inadequate. He also noted that her treatment of imagery in her works showed that her writing had an exceptional subtlety, having the ability to "virtually put the image in the word."<ref>{{cite book |last=Pasco |first=Allan H. |chapter=George Sand |page=161 |language=fr |title=Nouvelles Françaises du Dix-Neuviéme Siécle: Anthologie |year=2006 |publisher=Rookwood Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.authorama.com/famous-affinities-of-history-iv-6.html |series=Famous Affinities of History |title=The Story of George Sand |author=Orr, Lyndon}}</ref> [[Alfred de Vigny]] referred to her as "[[Sappho]]".<ref name="LiviaHall1997" />

Not all of her contemporaries admired her or her writing: poet [[Charles Baudelaire]] was one contemporary critic of George Sand:<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3637877/The-riddle-of-Miss-Sand.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3637877/The-riddle-of-Miss-Sand.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=The riddle of Miss Sand |date=21 February 2005 |last1=Robb |first1=Graham}}{{cbignore}}</ref> "She is stupid, heavy and garrulous. Her ideas on morals have the same depth of judgment and delicacy of feeling as those of janitresses and kept women ... The fact that there are men who could become enamoured of this slut is indeed a proof of the abasement of the men of this generation."<ref name=Baudelaire>{{cite book |last=Baudelaire |first=Charles |editor-first=Peter |editor-last=Quennell |title=My Heart Laid Bare |publisher=Haskell House |year=1975 |page=[https://archive.org/details/myheartlaidbareo0000baud/page/184 184] |isbn=978-0-8383-1870-6 |translator=Norman Cameron |url=https://archive.org/details/myheartlaidbareo0000baud/page/184 }}</ref>