For a detailed discussion of the relatively fluid categories of prost (.)ĢIn his letter to Colet, Flaubert criticizes Leconte De Lisle (whom he had yet to meet) for his insincere claim of never having been able to go with a prostitute: «Il y a encore une chose qui m’a semblé légèrement bourgeoise dans ce même individu: ‘Je n’ai jamais pu voir une fille’.
Colet’s misery was due in no small part to her lover’s avowed attraction to other women, mainly prostitutes.
Yet, in spite of her political courage and creative accomplishments, she is remembered primarily as Flaubert’s long-suffering mistress and confidante from 1846 to 1848 and again from 1851 to 1854 2. At great risk to herself, she also supported Victor Hugo’s work in exile. She actively participated in the movement for women’s emancipation and invested energy and funds into Flora Tristan’s socialist journal L’Union ouvrière. Colet, a dedicated writer recognized by the Académie française, organized an influential salon with the help of Victor Cousin that was frequented by literati, political progressives, and writers such as Vigny, Desbordes-Valmore, Gautier, and Dumas. Flaubert had been introduced to Colet seven years prior in the atelier of the renowned sculptor James Pradier 1. Du Plessix Gray, R (.)ġIn a letter he sent to Louise Colet on June 1, 1853, Gustave Flaubert stated most emphatically, brutally even perhaps, the importance he granted to prostitution in both his private life and his art. 2 Colet is only slowly receiving attention for her own work.1 Pradier’s sculpture of Louise Colet, meant to symbolize the city of Strasbourg, is still displaye (.).La scène où Rosanette met en jeu sa mémoire nous offre donc une perspective féminine unique sur le commerce sexuel et constitue un exemple remarquable de discours oppositionnel dans un roman dominé par les expériences de la mémoire d’hommes. Ce récit de l’expérience enfantine motivée par l’image, constitue un moment d’auto-réflexivité rare dans le roman qui va à l’encontre de la célèbre conclusion où les deux personnages masculins principaux, Frédéric et Deslauriers, reviennent sur leur vie en général et sur leurs rapports avec les prostituées en particulier. Là, Rosanette, l’un des deux principaux personnages féminins, raconte comment elle a été vendue par sa famille et contrainte à devenir une enfant prostituée. Cette stratégie narrative est notamment manifeste dans un passage capital pour tout traitement de la question du genre dans L’éducation sentimentale. Cet article soutient que dans L’éducation sentimentale, par le biais d’une confrontation avec ce qu’il appelle «l’idée de la prostitution», Flaubert choisit le commerce sexuel comme lieu privilégié pour décrire cette crise de la mémoire.
Rosanette’s memory scene offers us a unique female perspective on sexual commodification and serves as a remarkable example of counter-discourse in a novel that is otherwise dominated by male-gendered experiences of memory.įlaubert croyait qu’une crise de la mémoire, particulièrement remarquable autour de la période de la Révolution de 1848, fut le fléau de sa génération.
In the process, it contests L’éducation sentimentale’s famous conclusion where the two main male characters, Frédéric and Deslauriers, reflect on their lives in general and on their dealings with prostitutes in particular. This narrative of a little girl’s image-driven experience amounts to a rare moment of self-reflexivity in the novel. There Rosanette, one of the two main female characters, tells the story of how she was sold into prostitution by her family as a child. Such a strategy is notably discernable in a scene that is crucial for the treatment of gender in the novel. The essay argues that, in the context of confronting what he refers to as the “idea of prostitution,” Flaubert chose sexual commodification as the privileged locus to portray that crisis of memory in L’éducation sentimentale. Flaubert believed that a crisis of memory, which was particularly acute during the period of the Revolution of 1848, plagued his generation.
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