Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

Also reading shorter fictions by Balzac and Chekhov, and looking at French impressionist painting, this course will trace the depiction of everyday life in nineteenth-century Europe. We will focus on Flaubert’s great realist masterpiece. For our first session, please read the opening section of Balzac’s Pere Goriot, “A Private Boardinghouse.”

Benjamin Lytal is a novelist and critic. His first novel, A Map of Tulsa, will be published in April; his criticism has appeared in the Nation, the London Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, and the Daily Beast.

Materials List
Required:
de Balzac, Honore. Pere Goriot. Norton Critical Edition. ISBN: 9780393971668
Flaubert, Gustav. Madame Bovary. Trans. Lydia Davis. Penguin. ISBN: 9780143106494
Chekhov, Anton. Stories. Trans. Pevear & Volokhonsky. ISBN: 9780553381009
Flaubert, Gustav. A Simple Heart. Trans. Arthur McDowall. New Directions. ISBN: 9780811213189

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program.