ABSTRACT
Gustave Flaubert had suddenly discovered someone else whose mind was Flaubertian. Part of Flaubert's aesthetic theory is the idea of creating a novel that is a total work of art, in which every word, every sentence—“read and roared aloud countless times”—sounds exactly right. Flaubert believed in impassibilite, in objectivity; but, he is more involved, more present in his novels than his aesthetic theory would have him be, and the reader is far too caught up to worry about such inconsistencies. Flaubert insisted that the secrets of the workshop were irrelevant for the reader: only the end effect mattered, and he claimed one could express feelings all the more accurately the less one felt them oneself. When he was only thirty, Flaubert wrote to his friend Maxime du Camp that perhaps only after his death would his work be appreciated. Du Camp had been urging him to think of his literary career.
