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Jonathan Culler,
Flaubert: The
Uses of Uncertainty
Critical Studies in the Humanities
Jonathan Culler’s Flaubert
offers an introduction to the French novelist through
perceptive and insightful readings of the entire body of his
work. Rather than analyzing each of Flaubert’s novels as a
unified artifact, the author has chosen to disperse and
fragment them: to create from their fragments a context in
which reading can take place. The first chapter, however,
departs from this scheme, and, reading the juvenilia against
the problems posed by Flaubert’s literary situation, seeks
to extract a series of projects that lead an uneasy life in
the later novels. The second chapter explores the ways in
which the mature novels resist recuperation while at the
same time inviting it, and sketches what might be called a
pathology of the novel. The third chapter investigates what
might qualify as two unifying concepts: Stupidity, a major
category of Flaubert’s discourse, which brings about in
formal terms the fragile co-existence of notions which have
little common substance; and Irony, a central category in
critical discussions, whose affirming and negating qualities
offer the possibility of representing through it the
complexities of Flaubert’s technique. Finally, the problem
of reading towards a positive meaning is posed and explored
through Salammbô and Trois Contes. Culler
offers a Conclusion in which he offers some retrospective
justifications and explores the reasons Flaubert still
interests and rewards modern readers.
Contents
Chronology
Introduction
1. The Rites of Youth
A. Precocious Boredom
B. Narrative Strategies
C. 'Beyond' Romanticism
2. The Perfect Crime: The Novel
A. Opportunities
B. Description and Meaning
C. The Elusive Narrator
D. Weak Vessels
E. Thematic Indeterminacy
3. Values
A. Stupidity
B. Irony
C. The Sentimental and the Sacred
Conclusion
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Reviews of the earlier
edition
“Facile reading will not
satisfy Jonathan Culler, whose brilliant Flaubert: The
Uses of Uncertainty is destined to create a new critical
approach to the novels … [He] develops his paradoxical
arguments with dazzling expertise.” — The Yale Review
“[There] are innumerable
perceptive insights; the entire study is a model of
methodology, always clearly stated and constantly submitted
to challenge as needed…. This is a book to read, to ponder,
to rage at, and to learn from.” — Modern Language Journal
Author
Jonathan Culler is Professor of
English and Chair of the Department of English and
Comparative Literature at Cornell University. Among his many
prestigious publications are
Framing the Sign: Criticism and
Its Institutions; On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism
after Structuralism;
ed., Deconstruction:
Critical Concepts, 4 vols.; On Deconstruction: Theory
and Criticism after Structuralism; and Just Being
Difficult? Academic Writing in the Public Arena, ed.,
with Kevin Lamb.
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