Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert

Arnoux, whose wife he developed a fascination for when he met her briefly at the start of the novel. In Paris, Frédéric stumbles across a shop belonging to M. Despite this, his introduction to Dambreuse is not very successful. Frédéric leaves for Paris, armed with a letter of recommendation from his neighbour M. It's a book about love, about passion but passion such as can exist nowadays-that is to say, inactive.'įrédéric Moreau renews his acquaintance with a childhood friend, Deslauriers, who advises him to meet with Dambreuse, a rich Parisian banker. He wrote of the work in 1864: 'I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation-or, more accurately, the history of their feelings. Background įlaubert based many of the protagonist's experiences including the romantic passion on his own life. The main character often gives himself over to romantic flights of fancy.Ĭonsidered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, it was praised by contemporaries such as George Sand and Émile Zola, but criticised by Henry James.

The novel's tone is by turns ironic and pessimistic it occasionally lampoons French society. It describes Moreau's love for an older woman based on the wife of the music publisher Maurice Schlesinger, who is portrayed in the book as Jacques Arnoux. The story focuses on the romantic life of a young man named Frédéric Moreau at the time of the French Revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire.

Sentimental Education (French: L'Éducation sentimentale, 1869) is a novel by Gustave Flaubert. L'Education sentimentale at French Wikisource

Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert