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Appendix: Dialogue in Flaubert's Correspondance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2011

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Summary

On what Jean Bruneau thinks was an early version of Louise Colet's poem, Les Fantômes (Correspondance, II, 1098n), Flaubert wrote: “Il faut aussi que l'on sente plus nettement les deux voix qui parlent” (1 September 1852).

In the course of composing the inn scene of Madame Bovary (II, ii): “Mais comment faire du dialogue trivial qui soit bien écrit? II le faut pourtant, il le faut” (13 September 1852); “Je n'ai jamais de ma vie rien écrit de plus difficile que ce que je fais maintenant, du dialogue trivial! Cette scène d'auberge va peut-être me demander trois mois, je n'en sais rien. J'en ai envie de pleurer par moments, tant je sens mon impuissance. Mais je crèverai plutôt dessus que de l'escamoter. J'ai à poser à la fois dans la même conversation cinq ou six personnages (qui parlent), plusieurs autres (dont on parle), le lieu où l'on est, tout le pays, en faisant des descriptions physiques de gens et d'objets, et à montrer au milieu de tout cela un monsieur [Léon] et une dame [Emma] qui commencent (par une sympathie de goûts) à s'éprendre un peu l'un de l'autre. Si j'avais de la place encore! Mais il faut que tout cela soit rapide sans être sec, et développé sans être épaté, tout en me ménageant, pour la suite, d'autres détails qui là seraient plus frappants.

Type
Chapter
Information
Flaubert and the Gift of Speech
Dialogue and Discourse in Four "Modern" Novels
, pp. 173 - 177
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1986

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