Flaubert et la caricature : l’exigence de la modernité
Flaubert and caricature: the demand for modernity

Summary/Abstract: Caricatured at times by his contemporaries, Flaubert provokes extreme reactions. In his Correspondence, he dares to present a plethora of caricatures which suit his moods and his opinions, excelling in hyperbole and emphasis. A word of his own summed it up: « hénaurrrme ». Besides, his most memorable characters are caricatures: Emma – of love, Bouvard and Pécuchet – of stupidity, Félicité of Un cœur simple – of kindness. In Flaubert’s factory, the incarnation is intrinsically linked to deformation, itself degraded into a parody. Because the caricature in Flaubert is part of a nihilistic thought: the novelist participates in a general deconstruction of bourgeois society by an obviously political caricature even if the writer refrains from using the work as a platform, in the name of “autotelism” of art. Basically, it is Flaubert’s modernity that justifies his taste and the use of caricature.

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