27

Our interest for the novel Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert falls within the works of the Swiss Lausanne Group on the variants of manic-depressive organizations. Although our knowledge of manic depressive functioning has become clearer with time, the specific place of melancholy within the psychopathological continuum had remained a source of questioning. The authors wish to revive the concept of a melancholic entity and define its characteristics in a clearer fashion. Using an in depth analysis of the character, Emma Bovary, they postulate that melancholic functioning is a form of manic-depressive organization, i.e. one of its possible manifestations.