L'EDUCAZIONE SENTIMENTALE | I EDIZ. 1984 | G. FLAUBERT | L. ROMANO

L’educazione sentimentale (L’Éducation sentimentale) is a novel by Gustave Flaubert that traces the emotional and moral coming of age of Frédéric Moreau, a young man from the provinces, during the turbulent mid-19th century in France, particularly around the Revolution of 1848. Through Frédéric’s aspirations, unfulfilled loves (notably for Madame Arnoux), social ambition, and constant oscillation between desire and disillusionment, Flaubert depicts a generation's hopes and disappointments. The narrative juxtaposes intimate, emotional life with public, political events, underscoring how individual feelings are shaped—and often thwarted—by social reality. The translation by Lalla Romano is celebrated for its sensitivity to Flaubert’s style: faithful to the subtle ironies, fluid prose, and psychological insight, while rendering in Italian the nuances of his realism, his tone of elegiac reflection, and the precision of detail.