The influences behind A Sentimental Education (L'Éducation sentimentale)

1869

A Sentimental Education (L'Éducation sentimentale)

Gustave Flaubert

Second Empire. France. Written in French.

Flaubert's 1869 novel follows Frédéric Moreau from 1840 through the 1848 Revolution and the coup of 1851, as his lifelong unconsummated love for Madame Arnoux and his drifting ambitions come to nothing. It turns the novel of a young man's education into a study of illusion, inertia and failure.

Where it came from

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert 1857 follow this thread
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes 1605–1615 follow this thread
Lost Illusions (Illusions perdues), Honoré de Balzac 1837–1843
Volupté, Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve 1834 follow this thread
René, François-René de Chateaubriand 1802 follow this thread

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1837–1843

Lost Illusions (Illusions perdues)

Honoré de Balzac

July Monarchy. France. Written in French.

Balzac's novel of Lucien de Rubempré, a provincial poet who comes to Paris and is corrupted by journalism and literary commerce.

What it handed down

To A Sentimental Education (L'Éducation sentimentale) (1869)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Balzac's story of a provincial youth who comes to Paris to make his name among journalists, actresses and financiers is the template Flaubert rewrote in a deflated key. Deslauriers even urges Frédéric to remember Rastignac of the Comédie humaine, naming the Balzacian ambition the novel then lets fizzle out.

Where it came from

Waverley, Walter Scott 1814 follow this thread
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1795–1796

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1795–1796

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Weimar Classicism. Germany. Written in German.

The model Bildungsroman: a merchant's son joins a troupe of actors and gradually learns his place in the world.

What it handed down

To Lost Illusions (Illusions perdues) (1837–1843)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Goethe's novel established the story of a young man educated by the theatre, love affairs and failed artistic hopes. Lucien's entanglement with the actress Coralie and the Paris stage follows this apprenticeship pattern, though Balzac's documented debt to Goethe here is general rather than specific.

Where it came from

Hamlet, William Shakespeare c. 1600

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c. 1600

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

Elizabethan. England. Written in English.

Tragedy of a Danish prince charged by his father's ghost with avenging his murder.

What it handed down

To Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795–1796)

Direct source, well documented.

In Books Four and Five Wilhelm analyses Hamlet at length and stages it with Serlo's company, playing the prince himself. The play becomes the vehicle of his artistic education and self-understanding.

Where it came from

Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus c. 1200

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Gesta DanorumSaxo Grammaticus

c. 1200

Gesta Danorum

Saxo Grammaticus

High Middle Ages. Denmark. Written in Latin.

Latin history of the Danes, including the legend of Amleth, who feigns madness to avenge his father.

What it handed down

To Hamlet (c. 1600)

Direct source, well documented.

Saxo's tale of Amleth, who feigns madness to avenge his father's murder by his uncle, reached Shakespeare through Belleforest's French retelling and a lost earlier Hamlet play. The core plot, characters and feigned madness derive from it.

Where it came from

The line stops here: the Amleth story comes from Scandinavian oral legend not preserved in earlier texts.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To A Sentimental Education (L'Éducation sentimentale) (1869)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Lost Illusions (Illusions perdues) (1837–1843)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795–1796)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Hamlet (c. 1600)

Where it came from

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