Zola's dream : idealism on trial / Claire White.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

White, Claire, 1985- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Zola, Émile, 1840-1902--Criticism and interpretation.

Zola, Émile.

Naturalism in literature.

Idealism in literature.

French fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

French fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 292 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

Zola was the nineteenth century's pre-eminent naturalist writer and theoretician, spearheading a cultural movement that was rooted in positivist thought and an ethic of sober observation. As a journalist, Zola drove home his vision of a type of literature that described rather than prescribed, that anatomised rather than embellished - one that worked, in short, against idealism. Yet in the pages of his fiction, a complex picture emerges in which Zola appears drawn to the ideal-to the speculative, the implausible, the visionary - more than he liked to admit. Spanning the period from Zola's epic Germinal to his fateful intervention in the Dreyfus Affair, Zola's Dream is the first book to explore how the 'quarrel' between idealists and naturalists shaped the ambitions of the novel at the end of the nineteenth century, when differences over literary aesthetics invariably spoke of far-reaching cultural and political struggles.

Contents:

Introduction. Zola and the return of idealism

The quarrel of the idealists and the naturalists

The politics of impossibilism : Germinal

S/Z : Le rêve

Doubting Thomas : Lourdes, naturalism, and the miracle

On being right : Zola and Dreyfus

Epilogue. Idealism after the act.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 08 Aug 2025).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-009-57664-X

1-009-57666-6

1-009-57665-8

OCLC:

1526232778