Flaubert and Don Quixote

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Flaubert and Don QuixoteAuthor(s): Soledad FoxSource: New England Review (1990-), Vol. 27, No. 1 (2006), pp. 166-174Published by: Middlebury College PublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40244800 .

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LITERARY CRITICISMSoledad FoxFlaubertand Don Quixote

T AAitAit role of Cervantes's Don Quixotein the overallliterarydevelopment of GustaveFlaubert is one of the most important, and least studied, examples of influence andimitation in the history of the novel. While manyclassicaland modern authorsshapedFlaubert's ideas about literature,it was Don Quixotethat helped Flaubert reconceivehis method of writing and led him to write his firstgreatand successfulnovel, MadameBovary, published in 1857,when he was forty-six.The presence of the Quixote in Flaubert's imagination can be traced back to hischildhood. When he was ayoung boy, his favoritepastimewas to have Don Quichotteread to him aloud, in an abridged French edition edited by Florian. Once he hadlearned how to read for himself, he collected other editions of the novel, and theimpact of these readings is made evident in a letter he wrote in 1832,when he wasonly ten yearsold, to his friend Ernest Chevalier:

I knowI had oldyoubefore hatIwanted o be aplaywright,ut on second hought,I'vedecidedagainstt ... I havedecided nstead o becomea novelist ndI'vealreadygot some deas ormyfirstbooks.I'll writeaboutCardenio, boutDorotea,andoneaboutIll-AdvisedCuriosity.1These precocious declarations reveal several fundamental things about Flaubert,

including his sense of his vocation (writer), the genre to which he was to dedicatehimself (the novel), his literary method (imitation), and his great inspiration(Cervantes). Any reader of the Quixoteknows that all of these "ideas"that Flaubertmentions, such as Cardenio, Dorotea, and the tale of 111-dvisedCuriosity,were liftedright out of Cervantes's great novel.These lines from a childhood letter are just the first of dozens of references toCervantes that Flaubertmade duringhis lifetime and that can be found in his collectedcorrespondence. But this childhood reference is especiallysignificantbecause it clearlyindicatesthat his love of the Quixoteis fundamentally inked to his dreamof becoming

1.Exceptwhereotherwise ndicated,all translationsn thisessayaremyown. The lettersofFlaubert uotedmaybefound n thefirstvolumeof hisCorrespondance,vols.,editedbyJeanBruneau Paris:Gallimard,973-91).

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a writer himself. He himself saw the Quixoteas a life source, and yearslater he wouldwrite to his lover Louise Colet:Youknow hatour firstmpressionsrenevererased.Wecarry urpastwithinus,andwe feed off it throughoutour lifetime. . . Whenever analyzemyown innercore,Ialwaysind the same hing:DonQuixote.

Before investigating how Flaubert came to write a novel with many importantparallels o Don Quixote, t isimportantto consider how hiswritingcareerbegan. In hisyouth, Flaubert,like so manyothers of his generation, was seduced by Romanticism.Even though he was alreadyquite well read in manyother modes, genres, andperiods,for a number of yearsRomanticismeclipsed all other influences. His firstnovels, whatcritics call his "oeuvresdejeunesse,7*eflect the different types of Romantic literaturehe saw around him, and he tried his hand at nearly all of them: the historical tale,the fantastic tale, the mystical tale, the autobiographical tale. The titles alone givea pretty good idea of how much he yielded to the Romantic fashion: "The Fianceand the Tomb: A Fantastic Tale," ttFury and Impotence: An Unhealthy Tale forSensitive Nerves and Devoted Souls," "Memories of a Madman: Memories, Notes,and Intimate Thoughts." Flaubert's approach to these works was Romantic to thehilt, as ShoshannaFelman has pointed out in her study entitled Writingand Madness(Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985).He wanted to pour his "soul" onto the page, withoutany mediation or calculation. His only guiding artistic principle was spontaneity.One wonders how this earlyFlaubertcould ever have become the calculating authorof Madame Bovary- the work that has been called the "end of Romanticism." Thetransitionwas not an easy one.Between 1848and 1849,Flaubertbegan to tire of Romanticism, and startedto lookfor another way of writing altogether; but his Romantic tendencies were extremelydifficult to overcome. In his attempt to create something different and original, hebegan writing the first version of The Temptation of Saint Anthony. To his closestfriends and critics, Flaubert announced that this time his work was going to becompletely different:very well thought out in advance,and with a more prosaicstyleand subject in other words, a farcry from the Romantic elaborations that were hisweakness. But all this was easier said than done, and Flaubert wasn't able to stickto any of these goals and resolutions. He wrote Saint Anthony,which was 541pageslong, at breakneckspeed, without thinking aheador looking back,and the resultwasa novel that was out of control in its style a mix of fantasticaland lyrical and in itssubject:the paradeof civilizations before the eyes of a third-century monk.

Obliviousto the impressionhe would makewith this novel, Flaubertsummoned hisfriendsLouis Bouilhet and Maxim du Camp as soon as the novel was completed. Hespent four daysreading it to them aloud, and they were altogether horrified. Maximdu Camp remembered:

ThehoursthatBouilhetandI spent isteningwerelamentable.. the lyricismhatwassuchanimportant artof Flaubert's ersonalityndhistalent,had takenover nsuchawaythathewascompletelyost ... Weheard hewordsof theSphinx,of the

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Queenof Saba,of Simon heMagician,Pluto, Diana,Hercules . . Whatawaste;wecouldn'tmakesenseof anything,nor could we graspwhat he wastrying o achieve.The truthwas that he achievednothing.2His friends openly gave Flaubert their views of his novel, and he was, of course,devastated.In light of such a failure,he couldn't face trying to write anythingnew, sohe resolved to go abroadfor two years. During his travels,which included his famous

sojourn in Egypt, he began for the first time to doubt his calling as a writer. He wasobsessed with trying to figure out a way to get out of his rut and to write a great,successful novel. When he finallyreturned to France,he sat down againwith Bouilhetand du Camp, and the three hatched a plan. They told Flaubert that the best way toput a damperon his lyricismwould be to choose awholly unlyricalsubject.He had towrite about something pedestrian. In order to avoid the risk of going overboard withhis enthusiasm,he had to choose a subjecthe regardedasunappealing.It was decidedthat the life of the contemporary bourgeoisiewould meet all of these requirements, orthere was nothing that Flaubert detested more. Du Camp issued his instructions:

Tofightthat mad yricism oumustchooseasubject hatsimply an'tbelyrical, ndthatway you'll be forcedto censoryourself.Writea novel that dealswithnormal,bourgeois ubjects, ike Balzac'sCousineBette,andforceyourself o use a tone thatis natural nd familiar.Avoiddigressions ndmeanderings,orthoughtheycanbebeautiful, hey detractfrom the developmentof the narrative nd areboringforreaders.In the long run, Flaubertwould be gratefulfor this advice claiminglater that thesewords had cured him of the "cancerof lyricism."He shelved Saint Anthonyand setout to find a vulgar and unappealing subject. At the same time, he began rereadinga new translationof Don Quixote. It was this reading combined with the strict adviceof his friends that set him on the path to Madame Bovary.For the firsttime, he began to plan everyline meticulouslyand to layout a blueprintfor each part of his new project with enormous care. His new approach to writingreminds us of the example of the painterOrbaneja n Don Quixote an example thatmust have been quite important to Cervantes as it is included not once but twice inthe book. Orbaneja s asloppy artist,andwhen he sets out to paint, he lets himself be

guided by inspirationalone. Thus, when he paintsa portraitof a rooster, the paintinglooks nothing at all like a rooster. In fact, it is an unrecognizable figure, to such anextent that the artist has to hang a sign on the picture saying "rooster," or nobodywould have any idea of what it's supposed to be. Flaubert's first Saint Anthonyhadended up a bit like the rooster, and Flaubert was extremely careful now not to makethe same mistake again.The influence of Cervantes is apparentin both the style and the subject matter ofMadame Bovary.It is important to point out that though Cervantes and Flaubertwrote in periods andplacesthat were altogether different, there were some significant2. QuotationsfromMaximdu Campare from"SouvenirsLittraires"n GustaveFlaubert:OuevresompletesParis:Gallimard,981-88).




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culturalparallelsbetween their historical contexts as writers. First of all, both authorsfelt obliged to take on the popular literature of their respective times the chivalricnovel for Cervantes,and the sentimentalromance for Flaubert.By the time Cervanteswas writing Don Quixote, the chivalric novels, while still read, were outdated. Hewanted to supersedethem and to make fun of their weaknesses(including the abuseofliteraryconvention, as well asincoherence, repetition,and escapism),while at the sametime preservingtheir positive qualities (they were entertaining, imaginative, and theydrew the reader n). The chivalricromancewas at leastpartiallyresponsiblefor keepingprose fiction relegated to the literarylower class, oppressed by the upper classes oftheater and poetry. Under these circumstances,Cervantes set out to rehabilitateandreconceive the prose narrative, seeking to give it a new status within the Spanishliterarycanon.In Flaubert's time, the conventions of the sentimental romance had also beenrecycledad infinitum, and as he sought to renew the novel's form and meaning in histime, he was very much aware of how Cervanteshad achieved a similarrenewal in hisown. He came to see Cervantes as a true ancestor or literaryantecedent. In a letterto his mother, written around the time he began work on Madame Bovary,Flaubertagain confessed how much a part of him Don Quixotewas:

I believein racemore thanin education.In our heartswe carry he dust of ourancestors . .The same s truefor iterature.My originsareall n the bookI knewbyheartbeforeI couldevenread:DonQuixote.It is, of course, highly ironic that he would set out to imitate a novel whose

protagonist goes mad from imitating novels. For Flaubert, though, imitation wasnothing to be ashamed of- in fact Flaubert believed that imitation should be a keypartof anywriter'sapprenticeshipand he took pride in having studied

all the literaryclassicsat close range. He used to urge Louise Colet, who also had literaryambitions,to read much more. He was convinced that anywriter needed a deep background inliteratureand that that backgroundwas to be achievedthrough readingand rereadingHomer, Dante, Shakespeare,Rabelais,Goethe, and Cervantes, among others.But of all the great authors, Cervantes had an exceptionally privileged position inhis hierarchy.Cervantes had managed to take the most undistinguished character,aprovincialhidaljjo,and to turn him into the most famous hero in modern literature.Flaubert was determined to do the same with Emma Bovary. Through Cervanteshe learned that a novel didn't have to be set somewhere exotic, nor did it need tohave a Helen of Troy as a protagonist. The point of departure could be the mostcommonplace setting and character in the world. And as Cervantes indicted thechivalric romances through their effects on Don Quixote, Flaubert would do thesame with the sentimental romances through their effects on Emma.

Justas Alonso Quijano is afanaticalreaderof chivalricromances, Emma is addictedto the sentimental romance. The fact that both charactersare incorrigible readersof the popular literatureof their respective eras is an unending source of action andirony especiallybecause the novels they favorare demodeand representworlds thatare completely fantasticalvis--vis the contemporary "reality"they actually inhabit.

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Emma's desires to become an aristocratic romantic heroine are as absurd as AlonsoQuijano'sdreams of being a knight. Even the characters'names show how Cervantes,and Flaubert afterhim, pit the ideal againstthe real in every detail. "Emma,"a typicalname for a Romanticheroine, loses its connotation when combined with the decidedlyunromantic last name "Bovary" evocative of the bovine world and specificallyof thebouverieor cowshed. El injjeniosohidalgoDon Quixotede la Mancha echoes the greatnovels of chivalry such as Amadis de Gaula, but at the same time alerts the readerto the fact that this will be a very different type of adventure. The mythic chivalricknights were never from La Mancha (which in Spanish means "stain" and refers toa particularlydry, dusty region of Spain), and they were great and invincible, notingenious.The novels that keep Alonso Quijano and Emma busy arepure entertainment andare thus the type of literature that has often been deemed immoral or dangerous.Neither Cervantesnor Flaubert was concerned with the moraleffects of these popularromances on people, though: what they were concerned with was the degradingeffectsuch works had on literature. If prose fiction alwaystold the same kind of story andrelied on repeatingthe sameworn-out literaryconventions, it inevitablydevalued thenovel form. In their respectivenovels, both Cervantes and Flaubert show how absurda certain type of readerof a certain type of literaturemay be judged to be, but bothauthors also make it clear that there may be other possibilities for literature. Theremay be a type of novel that can entertain and also lead the reader to reflectdeeply onexperience, ratherthan making a fool of the reader,or drivinghim mad.Within both novels, the act of reading is essential. Alonso Quijano and EmmaBovaryare both idle, lead monotonous lives, and arestuck in the provinces.They havea great deal of time to spend reading. Don Quixote's addiction to reading reachessuch a point that he can't even sleep anymore and so staysup all night:

... on thoseoccasionswhen he wasatleisure,whichwasmost of theyeararound,hewas n the habitof readingbooksof chivalry . . ourgentlemanbecame o immersedin his readingthat he spentwhole nights from sundown to duskin poringoverhis books ... He had filledhis imaginationwitheverythinghat he hadread,withenchantments,nightly ncounters, attles, hallenges,wounds,withtalesof love andits torments,and all sorts of impossible hings... He would remarkhatCid RuyDiaz hadbeen averygood knight,but ... hepreferred ernard elCarpio,who . . .hadslainRoland Andhe wouldhave ikedverywell to havehadhis fillof kickingthat traitorGalaln,a privilege orwhich he would havegivenhishousekeeperndhisniece thrown nto the bargain.*For her part, Emma discovers novels when she is studying at a convent, thanks toa local seamstress who introduces the older girls to these illicit reading experiences.The books they read surreptitiouslywere:

3. TheIngenious Gentleman,Don Quixote de la Mancha in ThePortableCervantes,edited andtranslatedby Samuel Putnam (New York:Penguin Books, 1976).

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. . . filled with love affairs, overs,mistresses,persecuted adiesfainting n lonelycountryhouses,postriders illedateveryrelay,horsesridden o deathon everypage,dark orests,palpitating earts,vows, sobs,tearsandkisses, kiffs n the moonlight,nightingalesn thickets,andgentlemenbrave slions,gentleaslambs,virtuousas noonereallys,andalways eady o shed floodsof tears . . Later,with SirWalter cott,shedevelopeda passion orthingshistorical nd dreamedof woodenchests,palaceguards ndwanderingminstrels. he wishedshe could have ived n some old manorhouse,like those chatelainesn low-waisted ownswho spenttheirdayswith theirelbowson the stone sill of a Gothicwindow . . watchinga whiteplumedrideron ablackhorsegallopingoward hemfrom aracrosshecountryside. . SheworshippedMaryQueenof Scots and venerated therillustrious r ill-starredwomen. Forher,Joanof Arc, Hlose,AgnsSorrel,La Belle Ferronire . . stood out like cometsagainsthe darkvastness f history.4

These two passages are extraordinarilysimilar, with respect to both the type ofreading Don Quixote and Emma engage in, and the passionately yearning way inwhich they read. The two accounts also serve to bring into sharp focus the maincharacteristicsof the chivalricand sentimental romance, respectively,and to list someof the best-knownheroes and heroines in these genres.The underlyingparodyin bothdescriptionsis aimed at the impossibly idealized natureof the romances, which in noway prevents either Don Quixote or Emma Bovaryfrom wanting to emulate them.In the end, of course, it is not enough for Don Quixote to live vicariously,so hedecides to become a wandering knight himself. No longer satisfied with readingabout passionate adventures, Emma in her turn also decides to become a romanticheroine. As Amadis de Gaula will become the work on which Don Quixote willtry to model his new identity, Walter Scott's TheBride of Lammermoorserves asthe example for Emma. Both charactersare semi-aware of their madness, and afterbitterlydisappointingattempts to live like their models, they do their best to restrainthemselves. Parallelexamples of this are Don Quixote's reaction to the puppet showof Maese Pedro and Emma's response to the performanceof the opera based on thestory of Lucy of Lammermoor.When Don Quixote begins watching the puppet show, which is derived from achivalric ale, he interruptsthe performanceseveraltimes, revealingwhat at firstseemsto be a criticaldistance. He knows the plot well, and is annoyed that Maese Pedrodiverges from the particulars.But he soon gets so absorbed with the story that hebecomes not only mentallybut physicallycaught up in it, in a scene that is extremelyfunny but also quite violent. When the young Melisendra is finally abducted, DonQuixote brandisheshis sword and decapitatesthe puppet kidnappers.In the end, hisfury is such that he destroys the whole puppet stage.Emma also does her best to approach the opera Lucia di Lamermmoor as asophisticatedviewer. She recognizes that confusing art and life is a trap, and after atfirstbecoming completely involved emotionally in the familiarplot, she tries to lookat the stage with detachment, telling herself that the kind of happinessdepicted is no

4. QuotationsromMadameBovary re rom hetranslationyLowellBair NewYork:BantamBooks,1981).

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doubt only a lie invented to make one despairof all desires.Acquaintedwith the actualpettiness of the passions that may be exaggerated by art, she forces herself to takeher mind off her sorrows, attempting to see in this theatrical elaboration of feelingsnothing but a visual fantasy designed to produce her aesthetic pleasure.This great resolve lasts only a few seconds, however, for as soon as the handsomeactor is back onstage:

Allher determinationo disparagehe emotionsvanishednto thepoetry hatsweptoverher,and drawn o the manbythe illusionof hisrole,she tried o imaginewhathis life was ike,thatradiant, xtraordinary,lorious ife whichshe herself ould haveled if chancehadwilled t. Theywould havemet and Men in love! ... A mad deacame over her: he waslookingat hernow,she was sure of it! She longed to rushintohisarms .. to ... cryout to him,"Carryme off ... Allmy passionandallmydreamsareyours,yoursalone!"Thus even when Don Quixote and Emma seem fully aware of their weakness forfictions and are determined to remain on guard against them, neither character can

resist being smitten by a commanding literaryideal.Another important parallelbetween the novels is the role of the inns the venta inDon Quixote and the Lion D'Or in Madame Bovary as a nucleus of provinciallifeand also the place where novels are discussed. Even the particularcharacterspresentin the inn scenes arevery similar in the ventawe have the priestand the barber,andin Flaubert's Yonville the priest and the pharmacist.Both inns allow us to see a fullrange of responses to the experience of literature across the social spectrum.In Don Quixote, the innkeeper and his family are illiterate, but they have a fewchivalric romances that a traveler left behind and they wait for guests who can readthe stories aloud to them. The inn's barmaid Maritornes loves to hear the romanticparts, such as when there is a lady embracing her knight under the orange trees; forher part, the innkeeper's daughter likes the way the knights lament when they are farfrom their beloved ladies. She saysthese scenes often bring her to tears.The innkeeper himself is absolutely convinced that everything in the chivalricromances is true that they are historiain the sense of history, and not merely in thesense of story. To him there is nothing unlikely in the tale of Felixmarte de Hircaniachopping five giants in two with one blow, and the adventuresmake him as excitedas they do Don Quixote. He also wishes he could enjoy the romances twenty-fourhours a day. However, the innkeeper insists, he is not at all like Don Quixote, foralthough he, too, thinks the romances are true, he shows his subtle discernment bypointing out that they happened a long time ago and could not be true today.Whenthe priestreplies that the nonsense in the romances is pure fiction and was nevertrueat all at anyperiod in time, the innkeeper arguesthat if that were the case, the bookswould obviously not bear the official stamp of the ConsejoReall This debate at theinn recapitulatessome of the absurd but quite typical arguments surrounding prosefiction in the era in which Cervanteswas writing.At the Lion D'Or in Madame Bovarywe are made to see that Emma is not theonly characteraffected by novels. The young clerk Lon (who will later become her




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lover) sharesEmma's romantic affinitiesand explainshow he also longs to let literaturecarryhim away:

"What ould be better han to sit beside he fireatnightwith a bookand a glowinglampwhile the wind beatsagainst he windows . . . The hourspass,and,withoutleaving ourchair, ouwander hroughcountries hat areclearly isible o you.Yourimaginations caughtup in the storyandyou see all the details,experienceall theadventures;t seizes the characters ndyou have the feelingthatyouarelivingintheircostumes."

Mirroringthe difference between the innkeeperand Don Quixote, however, Lonis not quite as susceptible to the effects of literature as Emma. As will be revealedsubsequently,Lon, though he strikesa romantic pose, has his feet very much on theground and would never risk his comfort or financialsecurity for a romantic dream.Lon makesuse of romantic ideals to seduce Emma, but when romantic feeling is nolonger useful to him, he becomes entirely pragmatic.The worlds in which Don Quixote and Emma live are fundamentally hostile toliterature.The wayward maginingsof literatureclearlypose a threatto the very fabricof society in the provincial, Catholic, and conservative worlds of La Mancha andNormandy.In Don Quixotethe romancesin the maincharacter's ibraryareultimatelyburned in an inquisitorialritual. The idea is that if the evil books are committed tothe flames, our hero will regain his sanity. In Unewith such assumptions, the priestand the barbercome to the conclusion that the only type of reading Don Quixoteshould be allowed is religious.In Madame Bovary,novels are also considered to be evil especially by Emma'smother-in-law:she is horrifiedby the dissolutehabitsof her son's wife, who appears odo nothing but read.MadameBovaryseniorinsiststhatwhat Emmaneeds is somethingto keep her busy, and she begs Charles to cancel his wife's librarysubscription. Shedoes not burnEmma'sbooks, for this is civilizedbureaucraticFrance,not inquisitorialSpain, but she does threaten to report the book lender to the police.There are many other similarities between the main characters of these novels;both Emma and Don Quixote ultimately wish to see their own names in print, tobe assumed into a text. In addition, both experience their literarymadness as a kindof religious martyrdom:they take vows, stop eating and become emaciated. And inthe end, both areundone by the social classthat the romances they read idealize andseek to glorify:the aristocracy.When in Part II of the novel Don Quixote meets the duke and duchess, whohave heard of him and invite him to their castle, he feels that his dreams have finallyconverged with reality.For the firsttime he thinks he is a true knight-errant.But thearistocratic ouple arejust makingfun of him, and their cruel games finallydestroy allof his illusions and his life itself. Similarly,when Emma meets Rodolphe Boulanger, ahandsome aristocratwith a manor house, she too thinks that her life has finallycometo match the fictionalidealsof which she has been dreamingsince childhood. But likethe duke and duchess, Rodolphe is only interested in Emma to pass the time- thereis no great love for her on his part. In the concluding phase of Madame Bovary,it

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is Rodolphe who deals the final blow to Emma when she turns to him for money topay her debts. Don Quixote dies of naturalcauses, and Emma commits suicide withpoison, but the lives of both charactersend in deep disillusionment. And both appearto have a moment of lucidity before they die, a moment in which they strive to repentfor their follies and apologize to their faithful companions Sancho and Charles.

Following Cervantes, Flaubert compels us to reflect on the relationship betweenfiction and desire. To want to be a chivalricknight- or a romantic heroine is not anaturaldesirebut a desire evoked and mediated, asRen Girardremindsus, by literarymodels that seduce us. Even for the most skepticalreader,these models areextremelypowerful, and they regularlylead, however subtly, to the cycle of self-deception anddesire that Don Quixote and Emma experience.Yet at the same time that they appearto denounce the profound untrustworthinessof imaginativeliterature,both Don Quixote and Madame Bovaryultimatelyhave theeffect of reaffirmingliterature's seductive power. Perhaps that is why as readers wecontinue to yield eagerly to the indictment of reading that they offer.


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