Flaubert and the Sentence

Long before Flaubert, writers had experienced-and ex­ pressed-the arduous labor of style, the exhaustion of inces­ sant corrections, the sad necessity of endless hours committed to an infinitesimal output.1 Yet in Flaubert, the dimension of this agony is altogether different; the labor of style is for him an unspeakable suffering (even if he speaks it quite often), an almost expiatory ordeal for which he acknowledges no com­ pensation of a magical (i.e., aleatory) order, as the sentiment of inspiration might be for many writers: style, for Flaubert, is absolute suffering, infinite suffering, useless suffering. Writing is disproportionately slow ("four pages this week," "five days for a page," "two days to reach the end of two lines"); it requires an "irrevocable farewell to life," a pitiless sequestra­ tion; we may note in this regard that Flaubert's sequestration occurs uniquely for the sake of style, while Proust's, equally famous, has for its object a total recuperation of the work

Flaurbert and the Sentence (Barthes) Published using Google Docs Report abuse Learn more Flaurbert and the Sentence (Barthes) Updated automatically every 5 minutes Flaubert and the Sentence Long before Flaubert, writers had experienced-and ex­ pressed-the arduous labor of style, the exhaustion of inces­ sant corrections, the sad necessity of endless hours committed to an infinitesimal output.1 Yet in Flaubert, the dimension of this agony is altogether different; the labor of style is for him an unspeakable suffering (even if he speaks it quite often), an almost expiatory ordeal for which he ac