The sources for La Légende de Saint Julien l’Hospitalier, one of Flaubert’s finest literary works, have long been the subject of numerous conflicting theories. The implications of the controversy are broad and important, not only for Flaubert’s work but also for our understanding of how writers generally use traditional material. Superficial resemblances have led critics to conclude that Flaubert relied heavily on a medieval tale of Saint Julian and that he borrowed details and specific phrases from his medieval predecessor. This book, by a world renowned specialist in Flaubert studies and a medieval philologist, demonstrates that the Légende is not medieval in structure or in spirit, and that its conception is distinctly modern; where Flaubert borrowed at all he used contemporary sources to recast the Julian legend in Romantic style. Bart and Cook establish definitely what legendary sources were and show how Flaubert came into contact with them. Their extensive commentary compares the sources and the Légende in detail, explains the circumstances under which Flaubert used his materials, and analyses how they were woven into the texture of his own tale. The book makes available source material scattered throughout obscure periodicals, reproduces accurately and dates correctly important segments of Flaubert’s drafts and scenarios, and provides the first modern printed edition of the Alençon life of Saint Julian which Lecointre-Dupont adapted in 1838, thereby giving Flaubert indirect access to the old tale. An introductory chapter explores the broader question of the development of legends and how a particular legendary sequence, embodying powerful themes, was amplified and made explicit from the twelfth century to Flaubert’s time.

The author's starting point for this study was the conviction that Flaubert's difficulty in sustaining a narrative, so evident in his early works, was not entirely overcome even in the works of his maturity. Flaubert seems to have a problem in generating his text and keeping it going. What is the difficulty in generating a text? How is it circumvented? And, most important, how does this problem and the strategies used to overcome it shape the narrative?

First published in 1992, Narrative Exchanges shows how a general model of communicative exchanges can be refined to deal with the complexities of narrative fiction. Going beyond the two-way structure of reciprocity, it gives particular attention to the processes of framing, substitution and dispossession by which written texts generate meaning. The title provides an innovative way of combining narrative and exchange theory, bringing the two areas of thought into a mutually critical relationship. Using a wide variety of narrative texts, literary and non-literary, canonical and non-canonical, authors discussed include Flaubert, Achebe, Mansfield, Boccaccio, Duras, Daudet, Moorhouse, DeLillo and Wordsworth. Drawing on perspectives from anthropology, linguistics and education, and combining accessible readings with theoretical debate, Ian Reid makes a significant contribution to the debate about narrative theory.

Flaubert's Three Tales offer an excellent introduction to the work of one of the world's greatest novelists.