Sentimental Education: The Story of a Young Man

Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert is a novel that chronicles the life of a young man from a small town who arrives in Paris during the rise of protests against the monarchy. It combines a sweeping panorama of French society with an intimate bildungsroman and explores themes of love, ambition, and revolution. The novel is filled with dramatic scenes and satirical observations of hypocrisy and blindness, and is translated by Raymond N. MacKenzie with an extensive critical introduction and annotations.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 480 pages
Publication date: 04 January 2024
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Gustave Flaubert's influential bildungsroman, "Sentimental Education," is a fresh and vivid translation that delves into the history of his own generation, which failed to fulfill the promise of the Revolution of 1848. Published a few months before the start of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, the novel offers a sweeping panorama of French society over three decades, as well as an intimate bildungsroman of a young man from a small town who arrives in Paris during the increasing protests against the monarchy.

The protagonist of the novel, Frédéric Moreau, oscillates between aimlessness and ambition as he searches for a meaningful life through love affairs and republican politics. Flaubert's narrative includes scenes of high drama, as scattered protests across Paris swell into revolution, and quiet moments of self-aware romanticism, crafting a story that possesses the sweep and scope of a historical novel combined with deep emotion and scandalous intimacy.

Suffused with tragedy and the poignancy of lost chances and wasted lives, "Sentimental Education" is sharpened by satirical observations of what Flaubert condemned as the Second Empire's endemic hypocrisy and willful blindness. This vibrant, new translation by Raymond N. MacKenzie includes an extensive critical introduction and annotations to help the modern reader appreciate Flaubert's achievement.

"Sentimental Education" intertwines the personal, the intimate, and the subjective with the political, social, and cultural, embedding Frédéric's story in the larger arc of what Flaubert saw as France's decline into mediocrity and imbecility in its politics and manners. The novel explores themes of love, ambition, social class, and the consequences of societal norms and expectations, offering a poignant reflection on the human condition and the search for meaning in a changing world.

Weight: 680g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517914134