Authors, printers, and publishers were expected to serve as moral “sentinels,” notes Haynes, and licenses to print required businesspeople to swear they would control content. That subject matter and Flaubert’s refusal to temper it with moral messages were at the heart of the obscenity trial, as were evolving norms in terms of publication and press freedom in France. Though his publisher did dial down a few passages, the author angrily insisted that a disclaimer appear along with the book, which in turn alerted the authorities to its incendiary content. The book hardly reads as scandalous today, but its depiction of a bored housewife who embarks on a life of infidelity was nothing less than revolutionary 200 years ago. Were Flaubert and his contemporaries afraid to stand up to censorship?įlaubert’s refusal to tone down the sexual passages of his book appears to have been his legal downfall.
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