SOURCE: Barnett, Stuart. “Divining Figures in Flaubert's Salammbô.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 21, no. 1-2 (fall-winter 1992-93): 73-84.

In the following essay, Barnett considers Flaubert's problematic concern with sacrilege in Salammbô in terms of the paradoxical figuration of Mâtho and Salammbô as the Carthaginian gods Moloch and Tanit.

The publication of Flaubert's Salammbô in 1862 caused an intellectual battle—the so-called “querelle de Salammbô”—that was almost as heated as any of the battles described within the novel itself.¹ Since then the novel has remained, as the Carthage depicted within it, under siege by varying interpretations. What makes the interpretive siege of Salammbô unique is that it must confront an ongoing interpretive struggle within the text itself. Like the Mercenaries who climb the city walls to stare in horror and amazement at the ritualistic self-destruction of their enemies the Carthaginians, interpretations of the novel have the difficult task of coming...