Sartre and Bourdieu on Flaubert’s Authorship between the Two Versions of L’Éducation sentimentale

Abstract

This article engages with the readings of Flaubert's two versions of L’Éducation sentimentale (1845 and 1869) given respectively by Jean-Paul Sartre and Pierre Bourdieu in L’Idiot de la famille and Les Règles de l’art. In the first instance, Sartre's reading of the first L’Éducation sentimentale will be considered, in which Sartre argues that Flaubert rationalises and incorporates his 1844 illness into his protagonist Jules’ moment of artistic revelation. The article will then examine Bourdieu's response to Sartre in Les Règles de l’art wherein he rejects the existential psychoanalysis of Sartre's biography by highlighting the need for an understanding of the author in his socio-literary context which he sees as objectified in the structure of the 1869 version of the novel. Ultimately, this article will seek to evaluate the distinct readings given of the two versions of Flaubert's novel by highlighting them as the clearest elucidations of Sartre and Bourdieu's differing approaches to Flaubert's authorship and the contexts in which his novels were produced.