Gustave Flaubert

Flaubert is a genius of the particular;
Obsessive in his quest for exactitude,
Whether gallery-gazing in Fontainebleau
Or probing Carthaginian cults,
He restores lost worlds to present glory.
Whatever he writes about comes alive:
Out of history’s ashes his vision arises,
Like a dust-devil djinn or flaming phoenix,
To embody the bygone imaginatively.
This author's authenticity dazzles,
His scholarship astounds,
But human quirks he has mastered, too:
His Frédéric dabbles up and down
The ladders of love and occupation;
How natural that indecisiveness feels,
For we all live in cluttery jumbles
Of slapdash emotions and secondhand thoughts,
Like dolls in a charity shop whose companions
Are constantly moving in or out,
And love, if it's not a revolving door,
Is one that is locked,
Trapping lovers inside.