[In the following essay, Jay maintains that Salammbô, employs little of the typical mechanics of historical fiction and that it presents exoticism and ritual action instead of theme, motivation, or historical veracity.]

Salammbô tends to be a highly satisfying and at the same time rather distracting book. That is, perplexed as to the consequences of its subject matter, the reader, in this pendent, indecisive state of mind, is overcome with the novel's opulence and exotica. But the flamboyant spectacle of Salammbô that overwhelms the senses and makes the mind boggle arises from a firm basis of assiduously gathered historical facts. And it is the shackling of this erotic luxuriance with the results of detailed historical research that makes the book both unique and puzzling, engrossing and yet perhaps a little unsubstantial: after all, what does the intelligent, hard-working, well-intentioned reader make of a peacock in the henhouse. As far as history is concerned, the book adds very little to our understanding of the Punic Wars; neither are we made aware of why Carthage was an important city nor what causes led to its downfall as a center of empire. But once it is a matter of the spectacular treatment of historical fact, then the book's perplexity arises precisely because its quantity of historical baggage serves the novel in a way that has essentially nothing to do with history. Our problem, therefore, after appreciating the belletristic spectacle of Salammbô and the years of close historical research that it represents, is to try to understand the relationship between the historicity of the novel and Flaubert's task as a novelist.

From the artist's point of view, history stands at the pole of pure action, while its antipode, philosophy, occupies that of contemplation. Flaubert's extensive historical research opens up to him a whole reservoir of past actions which go to form the basis of Salammbô. The action of the book, however, is not one, is not a single, unique strand flowing the length of the novel, but instead is of two major types, what I call reported or tracked action and narrative initiated action. In the first case the narrator simply tracks the action. To draw an analogy with the cinematic art, he focusses on his actors and, camera fast in hand, follows them through their motions. Some examples of this kind of action are Mâtho's ascent to Salammbô's apartment, he and Spendius hurtling through the aqueduct into the besieged city, Salammbô's journey to Mâtho's tent, her advance to the place of honor at the wedding feast, and Mâtho's dash through the gauntlet of enraged Carthaginians in the last chapter. Narrative initiated action on the other hand is action that initiates with the narrator. Here the narrator resembles a cameraman whose vantage point is taken from a tower in the midst of a given field of action. By panning back and forth across the scene, periodically zooming in for a close-up, the narrator can create a sense of mass action, of great numbers of people in movement. We generally see this technique at work in the battle scenes, where Flaubert outlines the armies' overall strategies by moving back and forth among significant incidents—alignment of troops, deployment of archers, massing of cavalry, refugees' flight and the like—in which presumably many individual actions are taking place but which are sacrificed to the sense of mass movement. Whereas this technique of mass action comes to bear for the most part on the Mercenary war, the tracked action finds its most significant use in the actions surrounding the love interest of the novel. What we recognize as the two major plots of Salammbô, then, tend to be distinguished by different kinds of action. The historical accounts of the Barbarian uprising provide Flaubert with the plot of his book, while the subplot of Mâtho and Salammbô serves as a counterpoint to a story of war.

The love interest or subplot of Salammbô—if we can call the attraction between the leader of the Mercenaries and Hamilcar's daughter love—although imaginary in itself, nevertheless has roots in history. Mâtho of course appears in Flaubert's chief source, Polybius, as Mathos. And by making Salammbô the daughter of Hamilcar, Flaubert lends her the historical authenticity of the Carthaginian general. The love story of Mâtho and the daughter of his enemy is due, however, entirely to Flaubert. And whenever he resorts to his imagination to provide or fill out an event, whenever he either deviates from or augments history for the sake of the underplot, he supports his excursion by flooding the scene in which the imagined action takes place with details and objects provided by his research. Flaubert introduces Salammbô to us on the evening of the Mercenaries' orgy. Disturbed by the raucous behavior of the soldiers who have trespassed into her father's garden, we see her appear on the terrace surrounding her apartments and begin to move toward the riotous melee. But instead of following Salammbô's descent into the midst of the Mercenaries' debauchery, Flaubert interrupts her progress. He shifts from action to description. Describing how she is dressed, he compiles a short catalogue of what objects, what fabrics, jewels and powders a Carthaginian princess might have adorned herself with.¹ Violet powder, diamonds, pearls, the sleeveless tunic, the red-fringed robes of her attendants, their sparkling rings and their lyres, all these things, by being connected with Salammbô, provide her at the same time with an atmosphere both of historicity and exoticism. The book of course abounds with rare and exotic objects, but they tend to proliferate as we approach the narrative peaks of the novel. In short, whenever the plot draws Mâtho and Salammbô to a meeting—events that are themselves outside of history—Flaubert tends to introduce a sense of exotic antiquity by the way of unique and wonderful objects form the past. We will look at the function of objects in the novel a little more closely later on. But for the moment let us go on to examine the kind of action that comprises the underplot of Salammbô.

In the chapter “Tanit,” Spendius comes up with a plan by which he and Mâtho can secretly penetrate Carthage's defenses and enter the besieged city undetected. Playing on Mâtho's mysterious attraction to Salammbô, the wily Greek hopes to enlist his comrade's aid in the execution of a risky plot. His scheme is to discourage Carthage by stealing the sacred veil of the love-goddess, Tanit. The immediate effect of the theft on the underplot, however, is to lend Mâtho the confidence he needs to confront Salammbô. Off on their way to the city then, Flaubert tracks Mâtho and Spendius through the aqueduct, along the dark streets, and up to the wall of Tanit's temple, where they are about to gain entrance.

—“Lève-toi!” dit-it à Mâtho, et il le fit s'adosser contre le mur, tout debout. Alors, posant un pied dans ses mains, puis un autre sur sa tête, il parvint jusqu'à la hauteur du soupirail, s'y engagea et disparut. Puis Mâtho sentit tomber sur son épaule une corde à nœuds, celle que Spendius avait enroulée autour de son corps avant de s'engager dans les citernes; et s'y appuyant des deux mains, bientôt il se trouva près de lui dans une grande salle pleine d'ombre.

Pour passer plus loin, ils écartèrent une tapisserie; mais le vent souffla, et la lumière s'éteignit.

Alors ils errèrent, perdus dans les complications de l'architecture. … Des fissures taillées dans la muraille, laissaient tomber de minces rayons blancs. Il s'avançaient à ces lueurs incertaines. Enfin ils distinguèrent un grand serpent noir. Il s'élança vite et disparut.²

It is at this point, having followed the intruders into and through the temple, that the action is interrupted by an intrusion of objects. We move from action to description:

Puis ils aperçurent tout à l'entour une infinité de bêtes, efflanquées, haletantes, hérissant leurs griffes, et confondues les unes par-dessus les autres dans un désordre mystérieux qui épouvantait. Des serpents avaient des pieds, des taureaux avaient des ailes, des poissons à têtes d'homme dévoraient des fruits, des fleurs s'épanouissaient dans la mâchoire des crocodiles, et des éléphants, la trompe levée, passaient en plein azur, orgueilleusement, comme des aigles. Un effort terrible distendait leurs membres incomplets ou multipliés.

(p. 83)

Here again Flaubert demonstrates his tendency to seize on an action as it rises in intensity and to suspend it by shifting the narrative focus to the rare antiquities occupying the scene of action. But his description of the temple chamber is more than an interposed catalogue of objects whose archeological interest historically seasons Mâtho's progress towards Salammbô. Instead the richness of the description, the evocative diction and the vivid images that emerge as Flaubert scans the temple wall conjure up from the facts surrounding the action an air of phantasmagoria. The action has not only been suspended, it seems, but temporarily abandoned. The narrative thrust has turned from action to description, and instead of the plot advancing, the scene begins to turn in upon itself. We remember in Salammbô's descent into the orgy not only how the details surrounding her attest to Flaubert's immersion in the history of Carthage, but also how their description evokes a sense of exoticism that goes beyond our experience of history. And if for a moment we jump ahead to another scene, Mâtho's midnight invasion of Salammbô's bedchamber, we see again that his advance is brought up short by a profusion of rich objects; and under the spell of Flaubert's diction and of his languorous, rolling prose, those objects, results of his research, become exotic images, permeated with an air of unreal wonder. For example: “Une lampe en forme de galère brûlait suspendue dans le lointain de la chambre; et trois rayons, qui s'échappaient de sa carène d'argent, tremblaient sur les hauts lambris, couverts d'une peinture rouge à bandes noires” (p. 88). Thus Flaubert transforms objects that are the results of his interest and research in Carthaginian history from a row of facts into a display of artifact. Under the sway of Flaubert's artistry, a scene is transformed from a setting for action into an elaborate mosaic, an exotic tableau in which the characters are subsumed, becoming only other figures among the richly embellished details. At Salammbô's first appearance she seems to merge into the array of lushness that surrounds her; at that moment she is inextricable from the gems and powders and chanting lyres. In the same way Mâtho and Spendius are relegated, gaping and awe-struck, to the peripheries of our attention as the panoply of monsters depicted in the temple displaces the two lurking conspirators and encompasses them in its own intense eeriness. And later, as Mâtho stands dazzled among the rich glimmering objects in Salammbô's chamber, he himself comes within the domain of the limpid tremors of light given off by the flickering lamp. But while tending to encompass the characters, it is significant that the details of a scene do not give us a way to judge those characters. Neither do they have any moral value attached to them. Instead of any meaning surrounding the rich detail of the book, we find only the evidence of artifice. The myriad specific objects that Flaubert's research turned up for the book serve, as it were, only as the raw material of the artificer.

To return to Mâtho and Spendius in the temple, the narrator's preoccupation with the fantastic beast murals detain the two adventurers as the entire narrative force turns to evoke the awesomeness of the grotesque tableau. But after shifting from action to object, Flaubert will begin to lead us beyond the objects themselves. We notice, working against the exact terms with which Flaubert lends sumptuousness to his descriptions, such indefinite terms as “seem” and “appear” come into play. In the above passage describing the temple mural, we saw that Flaubert attributes rare qualities to the described objects in a very precise way, without great use of figurative language. But amidst this exactness he introduces terms which tend to distance us from the specificity of the description: an “infinité de bêtes,” and “confondues,” and “désordre mystérieux.” Flaubert's diction here does more than embellish the image of the fantastic monsters, it prepares to move us beyond the precise rendering of the mural. And in the remainder of the paragraph Flaubert picks up the vagueness and the sense of distance and accentuates them: “Ils avaient l'air, en tirant la langue, de vouloir faire sortir leur âme; et toutes les formes se trouvaient là, comme si le réceptacle des germes, crevant dans une éclosion soudaine, se fût vidé sur les murs de la salle” (p. 83). In abandoning the description of the mural, Flaubert goes on to disassociate the rareness of the description from the thing described. It is not only the misty quality of the evocative image giving up its soul, but even more the languorous periodicity of the prose (a and ai leading to the a-nasals, and followed by a cadence of r's, all culminating in the lassitude of âme) that helps Flaubert transcend the details of the mural and reach out for a sense of disembodied “form”: aesthetic power without concrete allusion, the ways of art without the coagulating point of art's objects. That is, Flaubert, once beyond description, attempts to render richness without its object, to arrive at artifice without artifact. In a languorous prose period, the beasts in the mural become “les formes,” which we are aware of as “une éclosion,” not a hatching or blooming so much as a manifestation or advent of the fleet spirit informing the artifact.

What we have looked at is one of the clearer examples in the book of Flaubert's method in treating the subplot of Salammbô. Where we have an instance of rising action in the plot, generally an action leading to an encounter between Mâtho and Salammbô, there we look for and usually find Flaubert's unique way of dealing with one of the most conventional of stories, the fate of two star-crossed lovers. We find the same method at work—though perhaps not to the same extent—if, for example, we continue following the two conspirators through the temple. Only a step or two after they encounter the figured beasts they find new and perhaps more fantastic objects in their path. After sinking us in the midst of voluptuous imagery, Flaubert glides into the realm of the aural, engaging a sense that for prose remains less concrete and palpable than an appeal to the visual on which the effect of imagery is based: “une musique s'éleva, mélodieuse et ronflante comme l'harmonie des planètes: l'âme tumultueuse de Tanit ruisselait épandue” (p. 84). To the tenuousness of an aural “image” Flaubert juxtaposes an abstraction, the spirit of the goddess. The shift from “mélodieuse” and “ronflante” to “tumultueuse” connects the two phrases, the latter lending the sense of a larger and more vibrant power informing the harmonious music of the spheres. Meanwhile the use of the imperfect tense in “ruisselait” imbues the spirit with a more dynamic presence than does the less obtrusive “s'éleva.” Thus we see revealed a spiritual effulgence disassociating itself from the imagery. It is as if the presence of an artificing power manages to burst forth pure and apart from the artifact it informs. Turning back to Salammbô's descent into the throngs of Mercenaries, the aura of voluptuous imagery with which Flaubert surrounds her begins to shift from the visual to the aural. And in the midst of the attenuated image of winsome lyre playing we are made conscious of Salammbô: “le petit bruit de la chaînette d'or avec le claquement régulier de ses sandales en Papyrus” (p. 12). Again Flaubert's use of imagery and his languorous prose move toward the aerial sense of exoticism lingering about his heroine: “C'était la lune qui l'avait rendue si pâle, et quelque chose des Dieux l'enveloppait comme une vapeur subtile.” Flaubert's treatment of his materials here is waving us on in the direction of the artificing power informing Salammbô. We witness the same transcendent beckoning in the scene that finds Mâtho entranced before the erotic richness of Salammbô's bedchamber. The sensuous luxuriance of the scene culminates in the barely discernible imprint of Salammbô's foot at the edge of her perfumed bath. “La trace d'un pas humide s'apercevait au delà. Des senteurs exquises s'évaporaient” (p. 88). As we move from a visual image to one of scent we are aware of the transpiration of the very essence of the scene: Flaubert pointing us toward what is insubstantial and essential at the same time. As far as the underplot of Salammbô is concerned, then, we have seen that it rises towards and then falls away from the encounters of the two lovers. And it is the function of the resulting series of peaks, founded on mountains of fact and detail, to transfer us beyond the profusion of facts toward the ineffable force permeating the book.

It should be more evident now how the aim of the book is not to come to some statement of historical truth: the novel is not about anything like that; rather it adopts the ways of the self-conscious artificer in order to display the ethereal creative force, the artistic truth, that founds his art. And while, moving toward the creative spirit without the created thing, Flaubert may not achieve what Mallarmé calls “la page blanche,” he does, as we will see more clearly, “au réel … oppose l'Idéal, le vierge Azur, le ciel antérieur où fleurit la Beauté.”

II

The first part of this essay looks into Flaubert's method of dealing with the underplot of Salammbô. We saw how the narrative thrust tends to evolve from action to image and finally to a spiralling away from both action and artifact, before returning to the requirements of the plot. The second part of the essay will turn to the plot proper of the book in order to examine Flaubert's method of working with the mass actions supplied to him by his sources.

The plot of Salammbô centers around the war between the Mercenaries and Carthage at the end of the first Punic war, around 240 B.C. Following his principal source, Polybius, very closely, Flaubert undertakes the task not only of recreating the facts of history, but also of communicating what the presence of massed opposing armies might feel like. For this reason Flaubert adopts the technique of initiated action. Instead of scattering the narrative focus among myrid skirmishes, he looks out at the scene from his vantage point and, like a cameraman of an epic movie, with broad sweeps pans back and forth among the different segments of the armies, lightly passing over the many individual actions in order to give us a sense of massive movement. There are many examples of this technique at work in the novel since it comes into play in nearly all the battle scenes. For instance, as the battle between Hannon's forces and the Mercenaries is shaping up outside Utica, Flaubert spends some two and one half pages scanning back and forth over the frondeurs, the gardes de la Légion, the young nobles, the poised war machines, the captains scurrying about assembling their men, the Anciens with faces painted red, the awkward formations of the Carthaginians, the Mercenaries penetrating the enemy's lines, the foundering cavalry, the inefficiency of the Punic épées and the advantage of the Barbarians' short swords, etc. (pp. 108-10). The battle of Macar uses this same technique, while in the final battle, leading to Mâtho's capture, it appears perhaps at its most effective.

L'infanterie punique tout entière revint sur les Barbares; elle les coupa. Leurs manipules tournoyaient, espacées les unes des autres. Les armes des Carthaginois plus brillantes les encerclaient comme des couronnes d'or; un four-millement s'agitait au milieu, et le soleil, frappant dessus, mettait aux pointes des glaives de lueurs blanches qui voltigeaient. Cependant, des files des Clinabares restaient étendues sur la plaine; des Mercenaires arrachaient leurs armures, s'en revêtaient, puis ils retournaient au combat. Les Carthaginois … s'engagèrent au milieu d'eux. Une hébétude les immobilisait, ou bien ils refluaient, et de triomphantes clameurs s'élevant au loin avaient l'air de les pousser comme des épaves dans une tempête. …

Mais un large bruit … éclata. … C'était une foule, des vieillards, des malades, des enfants de quinze ans et même des femmes qui … étaient partis de Carthage. …

Un redoublement de fureur les [les Carthaginois] saisit, et les Numides entraînèrent tous les autres.

Les Barbares, au milieu de la plaine, s'étaient adossés contre un monticule. Ils n'avaient aucune chance. …

Les gens de Carthage se mirent à envoyer … des broches, des lardoires, des marteaux; ceux dont les consuls avaient eu peur mouraient sous des bâtons lancés par des femmes; la populace punique exterminait les Mercenaires.

(pp. 338-39)

The scene goes on like this, alternating between the two sides in battle. The sense of clashing multitudes, of whole nations on the march, arises not from being merely reported but from the sweep of the narrative itself; the facts of the novel may owe to Flaubert's sources, but the sense and feel of history arise from his method.

While Flaubert gives us a feel for the grandeur and spectacle of history, he also fills out its massive framework with some of its specifics. Characteristically, Flaubert lends substance to his plot by shifting from initiated action to a focus on either a character key to the action or a particularly important aspect of the action. In the Mercenaries' battle with Hannon, for example, after sweeping over the scene of the battle, Flaubert concentrates on the Carthaginian general himself:

Hannon lui-même parut au haut d'un éléphant. Il était nu-tête, sous un parasol de byssus, que portait un nègre derrière lui. Son collier à plaques bleues battait sur les fleurs de sa tunique noire; des cercles de diamants comprimaient ses bras énormes, et la bouche ouverte, il brandissait une pique démesurée, épanouie par le bout comme un lotus et plus brillante qu'un miroir.

(p. 110)

What Flaubert does here is, instead of delving into the consciousness of Hannon, to limit himself to the exterior of the character. His imagination passes over psychological development as it comes to bear lavishly on description. Emphasizing description, Flaubert treats his characters as another of the book's rarities, choosing to present them as awesome and unique surfaces. If we turn to the battle of Macar we see the narrative shift away from mass action, this time to dwell on a particular part of the battle: the attack of the elephants.

Leurs trompes, barbouillées de minium, se tenaient droites en l'air, pareilles à des serpents rouges; leurs poitrines étaient garnies d'un épieu, leur dos d'une cuirasse. …

… les éléphants se jetèrent au milieu, impétueusement. Les éperons de leur poitrail, comme des proues de navire, fendaient les cohortes; elles refluaient à gros bouillons. Avec leurs trompes, ils étouffaient les hommes, où bien les arrachant du sol, par-dessus leurs têtes ils les livraient aux soldats dans les tours; avec leurs défenses, ils les éventraient, les lançaient en l'air, et de longues entrailles pendaient à leurs crocs d'ivoire comme des paquets de cordages à des mâts.

(pp. 175-76)

Although Flaubert concentrates on a part of the larger action instead of on a character, the technique of dealing with the material is the same; the charge of the elephants at Macar is exploited for the marvelous awe it contributes to the larger spectacle of battle. Flaubert does not highlight the military function of the elephants, but rather describes the awful uniqueness of their armor and the peculiar efficiency with which the oddly arrayed beasts despatch the enemy. In short, the elephants, like Hannon, lend Flaubert substance around which he spins an evocative sense of singularity and wonder. And while plot is treated as spectacle, character and limited actions serve as objects which are embellished by Flaubert's prose into rare and grotesquely fantastic artifacts.

By this time we probably realize that what Flaubert has in mind in Salammbô is not just another historical novel. He starts off in the usual way. He draws heavily on his sources for both plot and character. He even provides many specifics that the broad scope of ancient history overlooks. But as the events follow one another they seem to be related by reasons of juxtaposition rather than causal necessity. Moving away from the Mercenaries' orgy, the succeeding incidents forming the plot become more and more arbitrarily connected both to the original agitation for back pay and to one another. Rather than one action flowing necessarily from another, the events that comprise Salammbô seem to function episodically, as semi-autonomous units within the whole of the book.

Furthermore, the historical novelist commonly amplifies historical personnages into “real people”: he rounds out the key figures of history and has them generate the action of the plot, thus lending it likelihood. But in Salammbô we find characters who are largely unmotivated and psychologically ignored. Their responses seem to be governed by mostly elemental urges: mainly sheer love and hate. Granting the many interesting psychological implications that our post-Freudian sensibilities perceive, for example, in Mâtho's waging war for a vague kind of love, or in the wily Greek Spendius' desire both to stand at the head of Carthage's grandeur and to sack and pillage it, we have to admit that Flaubert himself does not explore the possibilities that lie in his broadly sketched characters. Thus as Flaubert's method in Salammbô ignores developing the characters his sources supply him with, so he disregards the clarification of the causal links that would weave the historical strands of his plot into a conventionally unified whole. The method that raises history to plot in the novel involves the exploitation of history for its value as spectacle. And character in the novel is used as an ornamental rarity to complement a plot of spectacle.

After remarking the way plot and character differ in Salammbô from what we know about more conventional historical fiction, we can next turn to examining the ends of historically based works. In his attempts to augment the factual framework of history with the details that history suggests but usually omits, the historical artist generally aims at elucidating the causality that he sees implicit among the incidents of history. By shedding light on historical figures and lending them psychological complexity, he dramatizes the extent to which the shape of history depends on its chief personnages. Thus by emphasizing connections among events in relation to the motives of the characters who figure in those events, historical fiction tends to play up the truths its author perceives in history. The treatment of plot and character then is determined by the end which they generate. For example, Bolingbroke recognizes that while the authenticity of his reign depends on keeping free from charges of regicide, yet Richard's continued existence threatens the stability of his fledgling rule. After Pierce of Exton kills Richard—for thus he interprets the new king's wishes—one truth will come to the forefront, that once rule is seized by force it is especially prone to any new show of force. In art that is founded in history, then, we find that plot and character work to illustrate the theme, or the perceived truth of history.

In Salammbô, as we can by now expect, the above does not apply in any usual way. As we saw, we cannot look for historical truths in Salammbô since probability among events and character motivation, the grounds from which historical truths spring, are treated only in a sketchy way. Nevertheless, if we take another look at the use of history in the novel, I think we will see a pattern evolving in the plot. As the major actions proceed from the orgy, through the battles to the sacrifice to Moloch and the deaths of Mâtho and Salammbô, we notice that the plot resembles not the causal unity of history but a kind of ritual action. Looking at the plot not as a juxtaposition of individual clashes between armies but as an extended campaign, the battles fall into an undulating pattern in which the opponents win and lose alternately: the victors exulting in their fortune and the vanquished somehow regrouping for revenge after a near slaughter. Because we soon learn to watch out for the other side coming up to take its turn as champion, the outcome of the battles becomes less important and instead we become engrossed in the way in which the particular phase of the pattern will be realized. In effect, our expectations change and begin to demand of the book not significant action, not historicity, but the fulfillment of the ritual pattern of action in a unique, exotic and spectacular way. What becomes important in the book is its form, how our expectations will be met. By honing our expectations to the appreciation of the embellishment of his sources, Flaubert can augment the framework of history in a way that would seem inimical to it. Instead of dealing with probability and motivation to highlight the truths of history, he subjects its raw facts to the artificing action of the artist and then emphasizes not history but its embellishments of spectacle, rhythm and pleasing configurations. That is, history becomes a ritual of wondrous if historically insignificant events whose individual movements attest to the creative force that informs them. In the same way, the specifics of history, that is, character and specific action, instead of adding credibility and continuity to history, reflect on the force that molds them into artifacts.

As we saw earlier on, Flaubert's method is to lead away from his facts towards a realization of the artificing force at work shaping those facts. In conventional historical fiction the relationship between history and imagination is a supplemental one in which they combine to refer outside of themselves to a general statement of their significance; that is, they function to establish the theme of the work. In Salammbô the artistic imagination works to transform history into a vehicle of spectacle, rhythm and wonder. The relationship between history and artistry reflects the “theme” of Salammbô insofar as the resulting artifacts refer to the artificing power which informs them. That is to say that Flaubert's method in Salammbô is reflexive; both the efficient and final causes of the novel—to use the most recognizable and precise terms available—are the same kind of force. The creative force which organizes both imaginary and factual materials into plot and characters for fiction is the same force that the novel tries to elucidate. The usual theme of an historical novel, the meaning of a reconstruction of history, becomes in Salammbô a self-significant force which presides over history but exists independent of it and indifferent to it. (The indifference of this ethereal force explains the total lack of moral outrage in the ritual ebb and flow of slaughter and ravage.) If for a moment we review the role of history in the plot of the novel, we find that for all the historical sources no lesson or truth is discovered at the end of any series of events. Instead, approaching the limits of history in Salammbô, the scope of actual events in the novel, we are referred beyond those events into the realm of the supernatural, the deities Tanit and Moloch. Not that the gods draw up the plans of history, but that the events of the novel undulate between these two ineluctable and inscrutable forces. The billow and wane: the curious pattern of love and war, desire and repulsion, arising from the midst of history gives us a sense of the indifferent godlike power which permeates history and expands beyond its limits while existing independently of it. And what we glimmer in the whole of the novel is the mysterious handicrafting of the creator, godlike, beyond the confines of his creation.

III

Starting with the problem of the plot in Salammbô, we have seen how Flaubert treats two different actions and the parallel methods he uses to arrive at the same ends.

We want to remark only that in what is roughly determined as plot, character (the characters, we remember, being treated as hardly more than other rare objects) and theme, Flaubert tends to emphasize spectacle, diction and melos respectively. Spectacle figures primarily in the plot (mass action). The descriptive powers of Flaubert's language are the hallmark of his treatment of both character and object, tending to blur the distinctions between them. And the periodicity and melodies of Flaubert's prose work tend to spirit us away from artifact most forcefully in the underplot.

The division of Flaubert's method into two discrete parts in this paper does not show how he produces his greatest effect. For when both mass and individual actions converge the book reaches some of its most striking moments. Among the most powerful of these takes place in the last chapter of the book and concerns the relationship between Salammbô and the masses of Carthage just prior to her marriage. Flaubert sets the scene among the temples of Carthage, where the entire city, it seems, has turned out to observe the festivities. In the midst of the grandeur and the crowds Salammbô appears. We follow her: “Salammbô marchait dessous, lentement; puis elle traversa la terrasse pour aller s'asseoir au fond, sur une espèce de trône. …” (p. 346). Salammbô's progression then ceases and we turn to the rarity of things immediately surrounding her, which leads to the description of Salammbô herself:

Des chevilles aux hanches, elle était prise dans un réseau de mailles étroites imitant les écailles d'un poisson et qui luisaient comme de la nacre; une zone toute bleue serrant sa taille laissait voir ses deux seins, par deux échancrures en forme de croissant; des pendeloques d'escarboucles en cachaient les pointes. Elle avait une coiffure faite avec des plumes de paon étoilées de pierreries; un large manteau, blanc comme de la neige, retombait derrière elle—et les coudes au corps, les genoux serrés, avec des cercles de diamants au haut des bras, elle restait toute droite, dans une attitude hiératique.

(p. 346)

The description of the exoticism of Salammbô becomes steadily more vertiginous—the swirling gown with flashing gems interwoven, the conic spiral of her exposed breasts tipped with jewels, and the drowning quality of Flaubert's languorous prose—until we pass from the first sentence to the second, which, in a series of rich images, transforms the sparkling object before us into a hieratic symbol: from a rare object to a mysterious supernatural quality.

Without being more specific, Flaubert begins to give us a sense of the grandeur and massiveness of the setting. He pans across the scene:

Derrière Salammbô se développaient les prêtres de Tanit en robe de lin; les Anciens, à sa droite, formaient, avec leurs tiares, une grande ligne d'or, et, de l'autre côté, les Riches, avec leurs sceptres d'émeraude, une grande ligne verte,—tandis que, tout au fond, où étaient rangés les prêtres de Moloch, on aurait dit, à cause de leurs manteaux, une muraille de pourpre. Les autres collèges occupaient les terrasses inférieures. La multitude encombrait les rues. Elle remontait sur les maisons et allait par longues files, jusqu'au haut de l'Acropole.

(p. 347)

The action of this scene lies in the sense of vast crowds pulsating and electric with anticipation. And then all the richness, all the multitudes, part, suddenly give way to Salammbô, as we discover the essence of her hieraticism: “Ayant ainsi le peuple à ses pieds, le firmament sur sa tête, et autour d'elle l'immensité de la mer, le golfe, les montagnes et les perspectives des provinces, Salammbô resplendissante se confondait avec Tanit et semblait le génie même de Carthage, son âme corporifiée” (p. 347). In this account Flaubert makes us rise from the crowds on the roofs up to Salammbô and beyond to the heights of the spiritual force informing not only Salammbô but the fact of the book itself. It is here that the power of rare image and vortically languorous prose transport us towards the seat of creativity at the peripheries of the novel.

IV

These last few lines will conclude our discussion of the method of Salammbô by glancing at it in the light of Flaubert's general attitude toward his art. As moral historian of his times Flaubert chronicles the vulgarities and silly illusions that make the world particularly frustrating for anyone of fine sensibilities. In Madame Bovary, that heroine's sensitivity, while making her in a way admirable in comparison with her concitoyens, also makes her awfully ludicrous, and finally kills her. And if Bouvard and Pécuchet are all the more bourgeois in their criticism of the bourgeoisie, then where in relation to the all-pervasive bourgeois spirit does that leave those who in turn raise an eyebrow at the two copyists' bourgeois attitudes? Indeed Flaubert, in exposing the pettiness of the bourgeoisie, must have been conscious of this frustrating circularity in which l'esprit bourgeois becomes almost a facet of the human condition. In this context Salammbô functions in two ways. First of all it provides a retreat into an exotic past. More importantly, though, its method indicates to us the way a man of high sensibility kept artistic equilibrium in a bourgeois world: for in Salammbô we see the relationship not only between the artifact and the world, but the artist's relation to both these. The subject matter founding the novel, of little significance in itself, is the dross from which the artifact arises. And in turn the artifact refers outside itself to the informing powers of creativity. Beyond the limits of artistry we find, in the seat of creation, the artist himself who, while perceiving the world, is indifferent to it and independent of it. The method of Salammbô suggests how Flaubert can find refuge in his art from the vicious circularity of the bourgeois world we see in the bulk of his novels: above and beyond creation the artist's artificing puts him apart from the world where the sources of art lie. As the speaker of Yeats' “Byzantium” finds his place in the world of spirit and artifact, so Flaubert, in Salammbô, like the Emperor's golden smithies, takes what history brings him from the world and transforms it into artifact. And what we have done is to try to trace that process of creation in Salammbô.

Notes

1. See Flaubert's reply to Frœhner citing some of the pains the author took in researching the details of the novel. The reply is reprinted in the appendix of Edouard Maynial's edition of Salammbô (Paris, 1961), pp. 367-75.

2. Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô, ed. Edouard Maynial (Paris, 1961), pp. 82-83; all subsequent references to Salammbô in my text are to this edition and will be noted parenthetically.