Flaubert: lectura y escritura

Abstract

Flaubert «escuchó», entre otros libros, Don Quijote, antes de ser lector. A lo largo de su enorme correspondencia, se puede seguir la huella de sus lecturas e identificar la simbiosis que siempre existe entre leer bien y escribir bien. Y de ahí su dogma literario que empapa esas miles de páginas: hay que frecuentar a los grandes escritores antes de atreverse a crear.

Among other works that he later read, Flaubert «listened to» Don Quixote before he actually read the book. In the vast amount of his correspondence we can find traces of the books he read and those traces show the simbiosis between reading well and writing well. Hence the literary dogma that permeates thousands of his correspondence pages: one must be acquainted with the great authors before daring to embark on creative writing.