Trials of Curiosity: Flaubert’s La Tentation de saint Antoine and Bouvard et Pécuchet

Flaubert regarded his last two novels, and the unfinished , as companion pieces. For all their obvious differences in terms of setting and generic models, certain similarities have struck readers, not least the way in which both works depart from the parameters of the writer’s influential poetics. A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Arcadia 2019-03, Vol.54 (1), p.1-21
Main Author: Buch, Robert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
askesis
curiositas
curiosity
Flaubert, Gustave (1821-1880)
gnosis
Gustave Flaubert
Hans Blumenberg
knowledge
Literary criticism
Literary history
Novels
Poetics
realism
Religion
science
Thales of Miletus
Theme
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Summary:Flaubert regarded his last two novels, and the unfinished , as companion pieces. For all their obvious differences in terms of setting and generic models, certain similarities have struck readers, not least the way in which both works depart from the parameters of the writer’s influential poetics. Among the most prominent similarities are an unmistakable and at times tiresome repetitiveness and the overwhelming encyclopedic scope of the scientific knowledge and disciplines informing both works. The essay charts the different generic lineages that make for the difficulty in situating Flaubert’s late work to then discuss a theme that is often overlooked: . Hans Blumenberg’s magisterial history of curiosity, , allows us to account for the peculiar mix of science and religion, gnostic and scientific curiosity, in , while the philosopher’s short study , an extension of the curiosity book, casts a new light on the ambivalent status of in
ISSN:0003-7982
1613-0642
DOI:10.1515/arcadia-2019-0002