SOURCE: "Flaubert and the Temptation of the Subject," in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3, Spring, 1984, pp. 280-96.
In the following essay, Brombert discusses the concept of the literary subject in Flaubert's works and refutes critical "distortions" and "overstatements" which view Flaubert "not only as the direct ancestor of the nouveau roman, but as one of the fathers of literary 'modernity'. " Brombert argues against applying specific theoretical systems of poetics to Flaubert's works.
