Émile Zola - A Very Short Introduction
Reduzierte Artikel in dieser Kategorie
| Verlag | Oxford University Press |
| Auflage | 2020 |
| Seiten | 160 |
| Format | 11,2 x 17,5 x 0,8 cm |
| Print PDF | |
| Gewicht | 126 g |
| Artikeltyp | Englisches Buch |
| Reihe | Very Short Introduction |
| ISBN-10 | 0198837569 |
| EAN | 9780198837565 |
| Bestell-Nr | 19883756EA |
Émile Zola occupies a distinctive place in the great tradition of French realist fiction. Brian Nelson introduces this quintessential novelist of modernity, and explores his fascination with change, and the way he opened the novel up to new areas of representation: the realities of working-class life, class relations, and sexuality and the body.
Émile Zola was the leader of the literary movement known as 'naturalism' and is one of the great figures of the novel. In his monumental Les Rougon-Macquart (1871-93), he explored the social and cultural landscape of the late nineteenth century in ways that scandalized bourgeois society. Zola opened the novel up to a new realm of subjects, including the realities of working-class life, class relations, and questions of gender and sexuality, and his writing embodied a new freedom of expression, with his bold, outspoken voice often inviting controversy.
In this Very Short Introduction, Brian Nelson examines Zola's major themes and narrative art. He illuminates the social and political contexts of Zola's work, and provides readings of five individual novels (The Belly of Paris, L'Assommoir, The Ladies' Paradise, Germinal, and Earth). Zola's naturalist theories, which attempted to align literature with science, helped to generate the stereotypical notion that his fiction was s omehow nonfictional. Nelson, however, reveals how the most distinctive elements of Zola's writing go far beyond his theoretical naturalism, giving his novels their unique force. Throughout, he sets Zola's work in context, considering his relations with contemporary painters, his role in the Dreyfus Affair, and his eventual murder.
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Inhaltsverzeichnis:
Acknowledgements
List of illustrations
Introduction
1 Zola and the art of fiction
2 Before the Rougon-Macquart
3 The fat and the thin: The Belly of Paris
4 'A work of truth': L'Assommoir
5 The man-eater: Nana
6 The dream machine: The Ladies' Paradise
7 Down the mine: Germinal
8 The Great Mother: Earth
9 After the Rougon-Macquart
A chronology of Zola's life and works
References
Further reading
Rezension:
Its highlights are the short yet lucid English translations from Zola's French and vivid plot summaries. Sucheta Kapoor, Techno India University, West Bengal , Nineteenth-Century French Studies
