Rage and Fire: A Life of Louise Colet--Pioneer, Feminist, Literary Star, Flaubert's Muse [Paperback]

Francine Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 1995

Acclaimed novelist and essayist Francine du Plessix Gray paints a spirited portrait of a woman who defied the rules and expectations of a misogynistic society to become one of its preeminent writers, as well as the intimate of such great literary figures as Flaubert, Hugo, and Musset. Most English-language readers are familiar with the notoriously tempestuous and beautiful Louise Colet as Gustave Flaubert's only love and his model for Emma Bovary. But in addition, she was, at the summit of her career, one of the most famous female literary figures in France. In describing Colet's ascent to literary fame, Gray draws on Louise Colet's recently discovered journals to capture the spirit of this fiercely independent woman. She also illuminates in vivid detail the intellectual, social, and sexual mores of nineteenth-century France. Written in a richly textured, novelistic style, Rage and Fire brilliantly captures the complexities of a woman who ascended to fame and literary respectability through her talent and a willful spirit that refused to acknowledge the word no.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Feminist journalist, novelist, poet and flamboyant populist, the impetuous, exuberant Louise Colet (1810-1876) is best known as Gustave Flaubert's great love and a midwife of Madame Bovary. In this gossipy, captivating biography, noted journalist and novelist Gray ( Lovers and Tyrants ) limns Colet as "a 19th-century Erica Jong who recklessly splashed her life and loves across her poetry and prose." Confidante of Victor Hugo, lover of debauched poet Alfred de Musset, Colet sparred politically with George Sand and ran a salon frequented by Baudelaire and Alexandre Dumas. She was an ardent supporter of the Paris Commune of 1871 and a fierce critic of the Catholic Church, which she accused of bigotry and hypocrisy. Yet in her later years Colet became what Gray calls "a militant born-again moralist" who railed at the materialism and loose morals of the Second Empire. Gray delineates the many facets of a hot-tempered, ambitious extrovert, a self-supporting single mother who refused to compromise her independence by living with a man. Illustrated.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Thanks largely to the excoriation by her lover Gustave Flaubert and his coterie of literary misogynists, the life and work of the poet Colet (1810-76) have fallen into obscurity. In this loosely wrought biography, Du Plessix Gray ( Soviet Women , LJ 2/15/90, among others) attempts to repair Colet's reputation but can't quite get around the same epithets that trapped Colet while she lived: "beauty," "Muse," "highly sexed narcissist," etc. Steeped in the Romantic movement, Colet strove to be taken seriously as a poet yet "compromised" herself by her relentless self-promotion and by taking famous men to bed. Moreover, her financial straits forced her to churn out slipshod work. Gray is so bent on proving that Colet was the "catalyst for Flaubert's genius" (does this make her a more noteworthy subject?) that the biographer fails to bring out the truly daring in Colet's life: her feminist writings and fight for the Italian Risorgimento. Still, this is an important study for literature, biography, and women's studies collections.
- Amy Boaz, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (December 7, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684804530
• ISBN-13: 978-0684804538
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,369,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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