The Censorship Effect

Baudelaire, Flaubert, and the Formation of French Modernism

William Olmsted

Charts both Flaubert's and Baudelaire's battles with censorship, showing in each case how it developed their literary voice and modernist stance
Revisits the often discussed court cases of these two authors, while uniquely bridging the gap between historical discussion, literary treatment, and the birth of modernism
Provides illuminating close readings of passages from both texts that went on trial, restoring to us their power to shock

The Censorship Effect

Baudelaire, Flaubert, and the Formation of French Modernism

William Olmsted

Description

In 1857 the trials of Flaubert and Baudelaire for offending against religion and public morality drew attention to the features we now associate with literary modernism; but instead of winning praise for their innovations they were indicted for "ideological crimes." With the passage of time the offenses have been forgotten and the innovations inserted into a triumphal narrative about the rise of modernism.

Far from manifesting the autonomy proclaimed by modernism's defenders, though, Flaubert's and Baudelaire's works remain enmeshed in their socio-historical contexts. To that end, The Censorship Effect argues that the stylistic features that prompted the criminal indictment of Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal--Flaubert's free indirect style and Baudelaire's multiple poetic personae--were much more the products of an intense struggle with a culture of censorship than they were hallmarks of autonomous or autoreferential works of art. They exhibit signs of self-censorship and collaboration with a regime of ethical and political censorship that not only shaped their very composition but affected their reception and continues to operate in the field of literary criticism. Indeed, as William Olmsted compellingly demonstrates, French modernism begins and remains deeply embedded in a culture of censorship whose proprieties, both literary and social, Baudelaire and Flaubert nevertheless challenged and transgressed.

Exploring the censorship effect as it played out for Baudelaire and Flaubert, from their trials to their monuments, The Censorship Effect recaptures some sense of their original anger as well as its ongoing suppression by new orthodoxies and reveals how the effect of censorship has implications beyond Flaubert and Baudelaire, beyond authors, but for us as readers too.

The Censorship Effect

Baudelaire, Flaubert, and the Formation of French Modernism

William Olmsted

The Censorship Effect

Baudelaire, Flaubert, and the Formation of French Modernism

William Olmsted

Author Information

William Olmsted is Senior Research Professor of Humanities at Valparaiso University.

The Censorship Effect

Baudelaire, Flaubert, and the Formation of French Modernism

William Olmsted

Reviews and Awards

"A savvy interpretation of Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal, The Censorship Effect brings to light new insights on both authors' self-censorship in relation to prosecutors' literal readings. Learned and engaging, William Olmsted enriches our reading experience of works which have become deceptively familiar." --Edward K. Kaplan, author of Baudelaire's Prose Poems: The Esthetic, the Ethical, and the Religious in "The Parisian Prowler"

"In 1857 occurred the trials for obscenity of both Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. The same prosecutor, Ernest Pinard, 'the great simplifier,' ran both trials. Hence William Olmsted's brilliant comparative study of how each author censored himself before and after his trial. Olmsted's naming of the 'pornogram,' i.e. a single then-unacceptable word, is both enlightening and delightful, and his new view of Flaubert's famous 'free indirect discourse' should change literary criticism for ever." --Annabel Patterson, author of The International Novel

"Accessibly written and honestly argued, The Censorship Effect shows how censorship operates subtly at the level of creation as well as overtly at the level of reception; how some of the great literary devices, and even our modern 'liberated' ways of reading, have their origins in earlier writers' negotiation of a prevailing mentality of censorship. Olmsted suggests not only that creativity is never free of the censorship effect, but that a literalism in interpretation, ostensibly in the name of anti-censorship, precisely misses the point, even or especially in its effrontery." --Jonathan Dollimore, author of Sex, Literature and Censorship

"A persuasive, highly readable, exploration of the ways in which censorship shaped modernism, both by restricting what writers felt they could say and by unwittingly inspiring forms of evasion. Through his perceptive readings of Baudelaire and Flaubert, Olmsted wittily demonstrates how writers, and in their wake, readers, lay bare the unspeakable while seeming to cover it up." --Rosemary Lloyd, author of Baudelaire's World

"Rather than starting with the cliché standoff between freedom-loving author and repressive censor, Olmsted looks at the fascinating story of how Flaubert and Baudelaire anticipated and worked with censorship. Through meticulously researched demonstrations, he shows how Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du mal were shaped by their authors' 'waltzes' with the censor." --Elisabeth Ladenson, author of Dirt for Art's Sake: Books on Trial from Madam BovaryI to Lolita

"Recommended."--Choice