Knowledge in George Eliot’s <i>Middlemarch</i> and Gustave Flaubert’s <i>Bouvard et Pécuchet</i>

This article considers late-nineteenth-century questioning of the progressive power accumulated knowledge by examining two novels: Gustave Flaubert’s final, incomplete novel, Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881), and George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871–72). Few scholars have analysed Eliot Flaubert comparatively. Indeed, there is a habit in criticism regarding them these exact contemporaries as almost antithetical authors. The comparative analysis provided this study shows that authors share similar complex preoccupations nature its efficacy. examines Pécuchet’s attempts to master various domains their contented relapse into copying alongside failed scholarly scientific endeavours characters Brooke, Casaubon, Lydgate. character Will Ladislaw, with his superficial approach knowledge, seen emblem future. underlines common ground between focus on topic whilst also divergence responses theme, marked perhaps most significantly at level narrative voice.