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Flaubert and the Historical Novel: Salammbô reassessed

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From the Book Cover: This book offers a fresh evaluation of one of Flaubert's major and most controversial novels. Dr. Green begins by discussing the 19th century debate about the relation between history and fiction, and examines Flaubert's distinctive responses to it. Then, through a detailed study of the manuscript plans for Salammbo, she shows how Flaubert worked to develop a new kind of historical novel. She shows the balance in his work between careful historical research and imaginative reconstruction; she charts how he modified, amplified, or omitted certain elements in the sources, and suggests his reasons for doing so. The result is a case history of the historical novelist's imagination at work, and on which indicates fruitful new perspectives within this area of research. Instead of escaping into a vanished world of the past, Flaubert drew on contemporary French social, political, and economic issues (particularly those surrounding the revolution of 1848) in his recreation of a distant and decadent civilisation nearing its end. Salammbo, Dr. Green argues, is as much a reflection of Flaubert's contemporary preoccupations as are Madame Bovary and L'Education sentimentale.