A belief in progress tells us something about the way a society views itself. Progress speaks
of confidence optimism and dynamism. It assures us of pattern and structure. In the nineteenth
century as the Christian model of development is increasingly challenged and as geological
findings expand understanding of history so progress emerges from the Enlightenment as an ever
more acute subject for debate. This book addresses the theme of progress and patterns of
progression in the work of Flaubert. Through close textual analysis of his works and particular
scrutiny of his narrative structures this book argues that Flaubert's position in the
mid-nineteenth century situates his work at an intriguing historical crossroads between
Romantic faith in progress and assertions of Decadent decline. Flaubert's response to progress
is rich and complicated offering stimulating views of momentum and perfectibility. In this
study actual progression is seen as a metaphor for understanding Flaubert's attitude to
historical progress. Each chapter focuses on a particular vehicle or pattern of movement
analysing journeys undertaken by characters in Flaubert's texts as models of disrupted
non-linear progression which provide a counter-current to contemporary ideologies of progress.
A closing chapter examines connections between Flaubert and Huysmans investigating the
response to progress in later nineteenth-century literature.
