Flaubert, Gustave | Jonathan Culler (essay date 1974)
Jonathan Culler (essay date 1974)
SOURCE: "Values," in Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty, Cornell University Press, 1974, pp. 157-232.
[In the following excerpt, Culler discusses the function of "stupidity" in Flaubert's themes, symbols, narrative strategies, and characters. Culler connects the idea of stupefaction with Flaubert's notion of the experience of "reverie" and the incomprehensible as the goal of art.]
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
SCHILLER
BÊTISE ET POÉSIE. Il y a des relations subtiles entre ces deux ordres. L'ordre de la bêtise et celui de la poésie.
VALERY1
A.Stupidity
At the age of nine, in a letter that one is pleased to regard as prophetic, Gustave discovered his first literary project: 'comme il y a une dame qui vient chez papa et qui nous contes toujours de...
[The entire page is 13016 words long]
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