Flaubert: Writing the Masculine

Flaubert: Writing the Masculine offers a new approach to Flaubert's major writing and to gender studies as a whole. Through a combination of close reading with a knowledge of current gender studies and particular attention to the sociohistorical and legal contexts of nineteenth-century France, it examines the masculine in the six very different literary contexts which are Flaubert's fictions. His characters, male and female, are reassessed for theirmasculinity: Baudelaire's famous view of Emma Bovary as 'masculine', like other critical idées reçues which have propped up a canonical Flaubert, finds a new interpretation within the wider discussion of the book, as does the term 'masculine' itself. While it is mostly Flaubert's men, both those who conform topatriarchy's models and the non-conformists, who offer new insights into masculine identities in crisis, the structures of society that endorse male status–legal, social, institutional, and literary-critical–also come under scrutiny. The book challenges the primacy of gendered terms over sex, and provides various methodological resources to further scholarship in French Studies, Gender Studies, and masculinities theory, arguing strongly for the adroitness of literature toformulate representations which are as relevant today as in Flaubert's time.

Orr revitalises old arguments and wittily tests idées reçues ... This is a book not only for gender studies specialists, but for all readers of Flaubert., Mary Orr's reassessment of Flaubert's characters in light of power structures endorsing male status constitutes a valuable contribution to the body of scholarship. Her elucidation of historical and social contexts, combined with insightful intertextual analyses and a skillful methodological approach make for an engaging study., This is a rigorous and persuasive piece of criticism.