As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-balancing of economic interests, what room will there be for virtue? When Nature has been so subjugated that she has lost all her original forms, where will that leave the plastic arts? And so on. In the mean time, things are going to get very murky.

Under this aspect Flaubert exercised an extraordinary influence over Guy de Maupassant Edmond de Goncourt Alphonse Daudet and Zola. His Œuvres Complètes (8 vols. Flaubert's lean and precise[citation needed] writing style has had a large influence on 20th century writers such as Franz Kafka and J.

Gustave Flaubert (French: [ɡystav flobɛʁ]; December 12 1821 – May 8 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest novelists in Western literature. He is known especially for his first publiGustave Flaubertd novel Madame Bovary (1857) for his Correspondence and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.