Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is widely regarded as the first “modern” novel and as one of the best novels ever written. First published in serial form in France in 1856, this story of a deeply dissatisfied provincial wife provoked a sensation, culminating in a spectacular state trial of author and publisher on charges of public immorality. Those events have long since faded into history, but the novel’s freshness, brilliance, psychological power, and literary influence can be felt to this day. In this course we will read the novel in two English translations, briefly review its historical and cultural context and its enduring literary heritage, and conclude with its most recent film adaptation, by Claude Chabrol (1991).