Reading it Right: Transparency and Opacity in the Avant-Texte and the Published Text of Flaubert's L'Education sentimentale

This genetic article explores the processes that led to a gradual "obscuring" of certain episodes in the transition from the avant-texte to the published text of Flaubert's L'Éducation sentimentale. It is shown that the narrative complexity and decreased readability of this text – features which are often viewed as quintessentially modernist – are not necessarily the result of a conscious strategy on the author's part. In short, Flaubert was not necessarily undermining his texts. Rather, it is often textual processes such as a textual dislocation of relevant story material that make the published text appear more opaque to the reader. In a number of cases, however, Flaubert uses a technique of deferred anagnorisis that impedes the understanding of the text. (MAS)