5/13/2023 0 Comments Madame bovary trialIn this book I argue that the trial processed as ordinary crime what was, in significant and special ways, ideological or political crime. The trial posed a mystery at the time of its occurrence-what were its real grounds?-and it has continued to do so ever since. In light of these considerations, it is surprising that so little has been written about the famous trial of Flaubert in 1857 for outrage to public morality and religion. At times the trials of important writers provide special insight into the complex way literature is a contestatory force in modern culture-a force that may even have political implications. For a trial is a locus of social reading that brings out conventions of interpretation in a key institution-the judicial system-and the way a text is read at a trial has decisive significance for the literary and the ordinary life of the writer. One particularly fruitful approach to the study of reception is to examine the reading or interpretation texts receive at trials. This focus indicates an obvious point where intellectual history and literary history converge, for intellectual history is profoundly concerned with the interaction between texts and their various contexts. In recent years much attention has been focused on the reception or reading of texts as a way of renewing our understanding of literary history.
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