4. Literature and Science

This chapter examines Bourdieu’s attempt to define the relation between literature and science. Taking his analysis of Gustave Flaubert’s L’Éducation sentimentale as its central case, it shows that Bourdieu treats literary and sociological writing as different modes of objectifying the social world: sociology makes social structures explicit through conceptual construction, whereas literature renders them sensible through fiction, character, situation, form, and style. It then turns to Mallarmé’s image of ‘le démontage impie de la fiction’ to consider whether exposing the social mechanisms on which literary belief depends risks weakening that belief and diminishing literary pleasure. Against this concern, it examines Bourdieu’s ideal of an amor intellectualis rei , in which understanding the historical necessity of a work can deepen rather than diminish literary appreciation. The chapter next situates Bourdieu’s distinction between literature and science in relation to post-structuralist and postmodern theories of textuality. Finally, it explores crossovers between literary and sociological practice, from Bourdieu’s use of literary examples and techniques to Annie Ernaux’s transformation of sociological ways of seeing into literary form.