Exploring Mythical Adornments in Flaubert’s “La légende de Saint-Julien l'hospitalier” According to Myth-Criticism and Myth-Analysis

In this study, it was attempted to analyze “The legend of Saint Julian the hospitalier” (La légende de Saint-Julien l'hospitalier) by Gustave Flaubert using Gilbert Durand’s method. Inspired by the paintings on the windows of Rouen’s city cathedral, Flaubert imagined and wrote the second narrative of “the legend of Julien L'hospitalier”. The present inquiry aimed at examining this narrative according to myth-criticism and myth-analysis method.
During the 1950s, one of the significant incidents in the French literature was the emergence of a set of literary criticism methods which were known as “new criticism”. The basis in conventional criticism was majorly considered to be “judgment” or evaluating works of art, whereas new criticism attempts to describe and interpret such works without judgment. Words such as theme, creative subject, the relationship between the writer’s and the reader’s second identities, imagination, awareness, myth-criticism, and myth-analysis are some of the main themes in “new criticism”. Myth-criticism and myth-analysis have originated from the beliefs and opinions of Gaston Bachelard (1948), whose beliefs have influenced Gilbert Durand (1979) as well. To establish myth-criticism, Gilbert Durand (1979) neglected material imagination criticism related to Gaston Bachelard’s (1948) thoughts so as to lay out a new approach called myth-criticism and myth-analysis. In fact, the readers of Durand’s works have constantly observed a perpetual continuity in his methods of literary criticism. For instance, myth is the mutual, permanent feature in his various studies and investigations. The methodology of Durand’s (1979) literary criticism involves establishing a second valuation of myth epistemology. Durand’s (1979) works are among the best works dealing mythical thinking. For Durand (1979), both myth and imagination are the starting and ending points of any science or art research. This means that myth and imagination are analogous to an intersection in which historical, social, and philosophical subjects along with psychological motives enter one another. In Durand’s (1996) method of literary criticism, reading myth is a key to understanding any work of literature arts, or even science.
This study sought to provide answers to the following questions: How does Flaubert’s system of imagination produce meanings in this narrative? Which myth has this system of imagination been inspired by? Why have these images been imposed on mind? What other images are contextually called into mind by the images and to what kind of images do they refer? It was hypothesized that since a pure literary work is inspired by its own discourse and cultural texture as well as the myths of that culture, such a work must be formed through religious, heroic legends. The present study was conducted in line with two purposes. Firstly, this study was set out to introduce a subjective-objective method for text analysis so as to gain access to the main sensory-cognitive and imaginary core of the text and its author through different images and diverse verbal networks. Consequently, the researchers can ultimately reach a creative self and understand meaning among such thick layers. The second purpose of the study was demonstrating the position of the creative self. As a result, there are certain questions posed such as how can a myth-criticism critic reach these complex figurative networks? Is empathy alone enough for reading a text, or should one resort to structural analyses related to the author’s imagination? As a matter of fact, myth-criticism and myth-analysis enable the critic to consider literature subjectively and, at the same time, to take it as an element which is self-critical. Subsequently, the role of empathy is highlighted in this criticism. According to these two objectives, another purpose was formed: how can this method be implemented on “three stories, the legend of Julien L'hospitalier” by Gustave Flaubert (1965). Imagination is benefited by the rules governing its products and involves a fixed syntactic combination. The presence of images is indicated by predetermined rules; yet, it is believed that individuals also influence the predetermined structures, since individuals live in their own particular cultural context and both influence the context and its structures and are influenced by rules governing the context. Symbolism is the product of environment in which humans evolve and change as it involves features that are particular to the human mind. Among these features, the desire or libido defined by psychology should be taken into account. Geographical and global facts, social structures, awareness on female fertility, awareness on masculine power, all of these external, and the objective data of cognition are integrated with our deepest desires so as to form our representation of the world. Between these two dimensions of reality, one objective and the other intrinsic, there is a perpetual exchange between constant reciprocating imaginations, which is called anthropology path by Gilbert Durand (1992), since it distinguishes the movement of human mind. This path specifies the definition for imagination. As a result, imagination according to Durand’s (1992) theory is a dynamism which indicates a representation of the world through the twofold impact that is, being influenced by the environment, desires or libido. On the one hand, desires or intrinsic commands shape the representation of the outer reality. On the other hand, necessities and objective commands of the environment help shape intrinsic desires. Symbolic images forming the imagination are created through such interaction. Ultimately, a question can be posed as the research prospect: Can one find a method based on which instead of focusing on concept (as Durand does) focus on linguistic creativity? It is believed that such focusing on linguistic creativity is completely essential because, in this way, a connection could be made between language and imagination