Can I read Flaubert Postsecular by Barbara Vinken on EtoBox?

Flaubert Postsecular by Barbara Vinken by O’Keeffe, Brian is a Arts and Humanities article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Flaubert Postsecular by Barbara Vinken about?

Flaubert's relation to religion," Barbara Vinken writes, "has been largely overlooked" (91). Can that really be true? Religion is all over the pages of Salammbô, La Légende de saint Julien l'Hospitalier, and Hérodias. Emma Bovary has her spiritual exaltations, sublime and abject as she suffers the Calvary of her disappointing adulteries; Félicité attains spiritual transcendence at the end of Un coeur simple, and who would dare invoke her parrot in order to mock the earnestness of her devotion? It is well known that Flaubert used religion as a touchstone in his writing. Vinken's claim seems, therefore, a little voulu. It remains true, however, that the religious element in Flaubert is difficult to handle, and it is tempting to deem his mises en scène of religious devotion merely ironic parodies. For Vinken, speaking of religion, "[w]hen it conspicuously comes to the fore, as it does in Three Tales, it is considered playfully ironic" (91). Perhaps this is true for some readers of Flaubert, though I am not sure whether even a cursory reader would ever deem Flaubert's irony "playful." In any case, if one considers Félicité's veneration of her parrot, no true Flaubertiste would simply d

Who reads Flaubert Postsecular by Barbara Vinken?

Author

O’Keeffe, Brian

Publisher

Project MUSE (ISSN 1559-0887)

Published

2016

Language

EN

Field

Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)