1830, Flaubert knew letters when he was 9 years old.
Flaubert is a very shy person, especially in front of ladies. Shyness still bothers him.
Flaubert's father was a Champagne and his mother was a Norman. He has the characteristics of these two nationalities: cheerful personality and indifference of the northern nationalities; Cheerful personality. At the same time, in Flaubert's nature, there is sadness and yearning for an unattainable ideal.
It was the maid Yuli who first brought him to this beautiful world. She is an expert in telling stories. Little Flaubert sat beside her all day and was influenced by romantic fantasies since childhood.
In the eyes of ordinary people, Flaubert is mentally retarded, but he shows literary talent. He liked literature since he was a child and read many famous books.
1834, Flaubert edited a handwritten tabloid, Art and Progress.
1835, when Flaubert 14 years old, he and Ai Lisha, the wife of Schlesinger, the music publisher and founder of Music Newspaper, spent a holiday at the seaside in Louvre. Lisa Schlésinger) met her and fell in love at first sight. When Flaubert first met Ai Lisha, his shyness froze him in front of this beautiful woman.
From 65438 to 0840, Flaubert entered the Law School of Paris University according to his father's wishes and arrangements. However, he was partial to literature since he was a child, and he was not interested in law at all, so he still lived in Rouen most of the time and rarely attended classes. In the literary and art circles in Paris, he met Hugo, who had been admired for a long time. But he spent a lot of time reading literary works and making friends with literati.
He failed the law exam.
1844 sudden neurosis (similar to epilepsy), he stopped his studies and lived in his parents' croix manor all the year round. Since then, he has devoted himself to literary creation.
He didn't make many friends in his life, didn't like socializing, and rarely traveled except for collecting materials for his creation. When he was young, he forged a deep friendship with writers, governors and poets. Whenever he has new works, he always reads them first. Although these two writers are not successful in themselves, they have good artistic appreciation and judgment, and they can put forward more pertinent opinions bluntly, which has played an important role in Flaubert's creation from romanticism to realism.
1845, after Flaubert's father died, he accepted a lot of inheritance, lived with his mother and niece in the villa of Croix on the outskirts of Rouen, and lived alone with his mother until his death. Located on the banks of the Seine, this villa is beautiful and quiet, and Flaubert has struggled here all his life. He is detached from the world, indifferent to life, behind closed doors, devoted himself to creation, and took art as his religion.
1846 In July, he met Louise Gray, a poetess in Paris, and she soon became Flaubert's close friend and mistress. This friendship lasted for ten years, leaving a lot of letters, which is the first-hand information to study his creative thoughts. Gao came to propose to him twice.
Personal love life brought him an understanding of women. Although Flaubert lived alone without marriage all his life, his love life was still colorful. There are five important women in his life: Eliza Schlesinger, Madame Foucault, Louise Gray, Princess Mathilde and Juliet Hebbel. In particular, his first love for Mrs Schlesinger represents "the great love of his life" and "the only passion". In his contacts with these women, he had a deep understanding of women's spiritual world and emotional world. So he can observe women from the standpoint of women.
George sand, Zola, Mo Bosang and others have a good relationship with him.
1880, Flaubert died of a stroke at the age of 59. Flaubert's profound understanding of society made him see the darkness of life. Flaubert experienced the French July Revolution, February Revolution and the Second Reich. He saw that behind the prosperity of society was political corruption, materialism and moral degeneration, and people only cheated without sincerity and trust. Therefore, he showed great understanding of some behaviors of women living in this social environment.
He saw the low status of women and found many virtues of women at the bottom. Flaubert saw the kindness and integrity of women from his mother, and the gentleness and courage of women from some women around him. So he especially affirmed some qualities embodied in women.
The environment of the hospital influenced his view on the suffering of life. Flaubert often saw the patient's thin figure and pale face when he was a child, which seemed so painful, sad and lonely. His own illness also brought him great pain. His father and sister died one after another, which made him feel the shortness of life. It can be said that the patient's scene, his illness and the death of his loved ones filled Flaubert's heart with nameless sadness and melancholy, which led him to be pessimistic and disappointed in life. Flaubert's writing depends not on inspiration, but on diligence, good friend's advice and keen observation. He strives to pursue an ideal style. Flaubert doesn't allow himself to use the same word twice on the same page.
From 65438 to 0843, Flaubert began to try novel creation.
1845, Flaubert completed the first draft of Emotional Education.
Flaubert is a pure writer. He has no job or occupation. Creation is his life, and art is his whole. He said, "Life is so ugly that the only way to endure it is to avoid it. If you want to avoid it, you can only live in art and be realistic from beauty. " He doesn't sell words, let alone souls. He spent many years writing a novel. He doesn't publish articles in newspapers and periodicals, and some novels were revised for 20 years before they were published.
Flaubert is a writer who has faced great contradictions all his life. He can even be said to be a combination of contradictions. Even Flaubert himself had to admit that he was a "strange animal who was drunk all day" when analyzing himself, and his personality was full of contradictions. As early as when he was 29 years old, when his mother urged him to get married as soon as possible, he called himself an introvert, but his body was full of boiling blood, and his mind was full of passion and uneasy thoughts, sometimes quiet and sometimes excited. Ten years later, he once again confessed his personality to the Gonger brothers: "There are two people living in my body. One is the man you see now, with a tight upper body and a heavy ass, who is naturally writing at his desk; Another likes wandering, a truly happy wanderer, obsessed with a life full of changes.
Flaubert is a very extreme person. In his mind, he thinks that love and hate are equally supreme and uncompromising. Flaubert mentioned his understanding of friendship in his letter to Miss Chantepie on1866 65438+February 13: "Whether we love an animal or a person (in fact, there is not much difference between people and animals), the beauty of this feeling lies in our understanding of love. Our own value lies in the power of love. " . For him, the preciousness of friendship is not limited to words, but also in his life.
LouisBouilhet is Flaubert's closest friend and the "midwife" of his literary works. Flaubert cherished his sincere friendship with him all his life. After his death, Flaubert wrote his last play Le sexe faible in his name, published his poems and made a preface.
Flaubert's important works include Madame Bovary (1857) and Salonbo (1869), as well as his early works Memory of a Madman (1839) and Smar, an ancient secret. He wrote many letters. He expresses himself in letters, but hides himself in novels.
Flaubert began to write "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" from 1848, and 1872 was finalized. During the third period, the manuscript was published in 1874. Flaubert began to write this novel again and again, and stopped writing again and again. Saint Anthony seduced Flaubert for 25 years. Flaubert himself said that Saint Anthony was himself. Saint Anthony is the founder of ancient Christian monasteries. He resisted the temptations of the devil all his life.
After the publication of Madame Bovary, Flaubert was very tired and disappointed with the social reality in Europe. He tried to escape from this world, so he turned his attention to the kingdom of ancient Carthage and went to Africa. He said: "in the depths of my soul, there is the morning fog in the north that I breathed from childhood;" I am born with the savage's melancholy and migratory instinct. I hate life from the bottom of my heart, which forces them to leave their hometown, so they leave their hometown just like leaving themselves. " So he created the historical novel Salombo. The story happened after the First Punic War, when Mato, Carthage's mercenary, led a mutiny, and he fell in love with Salembo, the daughter of Carthage's commander in chief. After many bloody and cruel battles, the mercenaries were finally defeated, Mato was sentenced to death, and Sarampo died immediately.
Flaubert "rejects all factions" and hates the title of realism. He doesn't belong to any party, nor is he interested in any society. He hates realism, which is why he wrote Madame Bovary. He advocated the writing principle of "the writer hides".
Flaubert had close contacts with Zola, a naturalist writer and theorist. Zola was his friend, and Mo Bosang, a famous naturalist, was his proud disciple in his later years.
From 1875 to 65438+February, there was an argument about aesthetic thoughts between Flaubert and his mentor and French woman writer george sand. In this debate, Flaubert said, "Speaking of my friends, you added' I belong to this school', and I rejected all schools in advance", "I can't bring another temperament other than my temperament, or another set of aesthetics that is not developed according to my temperament", "Note that I hate what is unanimously called realism, even though people regard me as one of its high priests". He hates being classified into a certain category and never admits that he has anything to do with any doctrine, especially realism.