Flaubert’s Landscape Descriptions

This short book is a survey of Flaubert’s landscape descriptions. It covers all Flaubert’s writings, from the famous works of fiction to his lesser known travel writings, as well as private writings such as letters, notebooks, and journals. Much of the descriptive writing about landscapes in Flaubert’s fiction is brief, and often symbolic: hence every detail counts in some way toward making a subtle contribution to the mood or structure of the narrative. Flaubert’s private writings treat landscape more expansively, but are also clearly a kind of workshop in which he honed his technique for descriptive prose.