Gustave Flaubert, La tentation de saint Antoine [The Temptation of Saint Anthony]

Mary Margaret Orr (University of St Andrews)

Ed. by Tim Unwin, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.05: French Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth-Century , 1800-1900.
Vol. editors: David Elwyn Evans (University of St Andrews), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Elisabeth Gerwin (University of Lethbridge), Nigel Harkness (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield), Jennifer Yee (University of Oxford)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1874

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

For those familiar with

Madame Bovary

(1857) or

L'Education sentimentale

(1869), the experience of reading Flaubert's least-known and least-discussed work is a shock. The

Tentation de Saint Antoine

's static central protagonist, his uncertain “dialogues” with a plethora of two-dimensional mouthpieces for strange religious and philosophical ideas (the “temptations”), and the whirl of intercalated descriptions – all present utter confusion of meanings, if indeed meanings are to be had in this wayward text. Even stoical readers armed with some knowledge of the overwhelming erudition behind the work, in terms of its many historical and religious references, admit to the boredom and alienation of the experience of reading the

Tentation

. Many critics, including Flaubert's close friends…

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2638 words

Citation: Orr, Mary Margaret. "La tentation de saint Antoine". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 April 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4150, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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Gustave Flaubert, La tentation de saint Antoine [The Temptation of Saint Anthony]

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