Dictionnaire Des Idées Reçues
1913
Every society produces its own poison: the received idea, the comfortable untruth everyone repeats without thinking. Flaubert spent decades eavesdropping on conversations, noting down every platitude and cliché he encountered. After his death, this treasury of absurdity was published as a dictionary, each entry a term supposedly beyond question, followed by Flaubert's devastating commentary. 'Actors: Mention their immorality.' 'The Middle Classes: The salt of the earth.' 'Marriage: A serious matter, there are no happy ones.' The brilliance lies in whatFlaubert leaves unsaid; the irony does the work. Barzun's English translation found modern equivalents, proving these are not merely Victorian fossils. Read it now and recognize yourself, the part that thinks in quotations, that judges by consensus, that mistakes repetition for truth. This is satire at its most elegant: no anger, just precision. The philistine has not died; he has only learned new phrases.
