Flaubert - Sentimental Education
The Oxford edition cover of Flaubert's Sentimental Education sports a study of dejeuner sur l'herbe done in 1865 by Monet (left) not the 1862 Manet work of the same title referred to by Proust seen below. Viewing these two works we sense the difference between the no picnic 1848 revolutionary days of Flaubert's novel to the fin-de-siècle decay later described by Proust. Flaubert gives us a fast paced trip through Paris complete with lavish details of dress, food, streets and the people, all caught in a political maelstrom that sometimes seems to mirror our own times. One critic describes this novel as "a walk down a breezy sidewalk". The well drawn characters are frequently described by their occupational status (clerk, lawyer) or political predilections (Citizen, Republi can). Our diffident, modest and shy* protagonist Fréd éric Moreau has completed his baccalaureate gets an inheritance from an uncle and goes to Paris leaving behind his mother a
