Flaubert and Authority

This chapter focuses on Davis’s translation and rewriting of Flaubert’s work in her translation of Madame Bovary and in her ‘Ten Stories from Flaubert’. The first half of the chapter analyses her translation of Madame Bovary, asking how it is positioned through Davis’s paratextual materials. As the retranslation of a multiply translated novel, Davis positions her translation as a translation of the style of the novel, against earlier translations. While Madame Bovary is a conventional translation, Davis’s ‘Ten Stories from Flaubert’ problematizes the distinction between writing and translation, as the stories are based on translated extracts from Flaubert’s letters. As such, they are read with both Davis and Flaubert in mind; this doubleness recalls found objects that are both everyday objects and presented as artistic works.