Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is widely regarded as one of the best novels ever written. The sensation that was provoked by its initial publication in serial form in 1856, including a spectacular state trial of author and publisher on charges of public immorality, has long since faded into history, but the novel’s freshness, power, and influence can be felt to this day. In this course we will read the novel in English translation, briefly review its historical and cultural context and its enduring literary heritage, and conclude with two film adaptations by Vincente Minnelli (1949) and Claude Chabrol (1991). LIT (D. Price)