Flaubert, Zola, and the Incorporation of Disciplinary Knowledge

'Duffy breaks new ground in this major study by offering a rich analysis of the incorporation of an impressive range of contemporary extraliterary discourses into the writings of Flaubert and Zola, two of the nineteenth century's most influential writers. Moving beyond understandings of incorporation that focus on sexuality, he attentively probes, through a series of close readings and intertextual and theoretical engagements, the ways in which disciplinary knowledge is represented in the powerful metaphor of the physiological body in need of treatment and correction. The book makes a high-quality, imaginative contribution, not merely to the discipline of French studies but, in-keeping with its desire to break down discursive boundaries, to scholarship on the interfaces between literary, medical and scientific discourses, the documentary culture of nineteenth-century France, and the dynamics of archive and documentary fiction.' - Dr Steven Wilson, School of Modern Languages, Queen's University Belfast

This book is about how France's two major documentary authors of the nineteenth century – Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola – incorporate medical knowledge about the body into their works, and in so doing exploit its metaphorical potential of the body to engage in critical reflection about the accumulation and reconfiguration of knowledge.This book is about how France's two major documentary authors of the nineteenth century – Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola – incorporate medical knowledge about the body into their works, and in so doing exploit its metaphorical potential of the body to engage in critical reflection about the accumulation and reconfiguration of knowledge.