Flaubert's love Topoi. The Aesthetics of Prostitution

The article shows how Flaubert dismantles the notion of romantic love in L'Education sentimentale through a double use of traditional love topoi. Flaubert stages a number of literary scenes where romantic love usually is at large, scenes where authentic or spontaneous feelings of love historically have thrived. At the same time, he inserts unconventional elements into these scenes. In that way Flaubert not only disassembles the notion of romantic love but he also signals how post-romantic love can be reactivated through the idea of prostitution. The article then analyzes what consequences such a substitution has for the very notion of topos. It is argued that Flaubert's reworking of topoi can be theorized by way of a new, not rhetorical, but aesthetic idea of literary topology. The article identifies how Flaubert invents non-typical topoi, which rely on aesthetic meaning and not rhetorical verisimilitude.