Flaubert and Don Quijote: The Influence of Cervantes on Madame Bovary

This book tells the story of how Gustave Flaubert’s admiration for Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quijote unfolded, and how profoundly it shaped and influenced Flaubert’s ambition and his approach to all his major works, beginning with his breakthrough novel Madame Bovary. It thus fills a major gap in the history of the novel and explores, for the first time, just what Flaubert meant when he said, “I can trace all my origins back to the book I knew by heart.” This study situates each author in his respective historical and aesthetic context, and provides key examples from Don Quijote and Madame Bovary, Flaubert’s Correspondence, as well as his earlier novels. This study also illustrates how Flaubert’s letters and novels show how the French author penetrated deeply into Cervantes’ novelistic approach and how his relationship to Don Quijote directly shaped his success at the crux of his career.