Zola, Émile (1840-1902)

Zola, Émile (1840-1902)

French novelist, son of an Italian father, known for his leadership of the school of Naturalism. His works, marked by scrupulous accuracy of background, speech, and psychological traits, and a determinism of character by heredity and environment which has been compared to that of Taine, include Thérèse Raquin ( 1867); Les Soirées de Medan ( 1880), stories of the Franco-Prussian War, regarded as a manifesto of Zola's group of naturalist writers ( Maupassant, Huysmans, Paul Alexis, Céard, Hennique); Le Roman Expérimentale ( 1880) and Les Romanciers Naturalistes ( 1881), books of criticism, explaining his method and his theories; the novels in the Rougon-Macquart series ( 1871-1893); the Trois Villes series ( 1894-1897); the Quatre Evangiles series ( 1897-), which was left incomplete at the author's death; and J'Accue ( 1898).

Zola was a clerk in a publishing house in the early part of his career, and later became a journalist. He spent most of his life as a recluse (cf. Balzac, Daudet, Flaubert, Goncourt brothers), writing his numerous novels, for the background of which he studied factual monographs and prepared actual dossiers for the characters, as though for real people. His work was attacked for immorality, exaggeration, and lack of taste, and caused much controversy in its day. Zola himself had strong humanitarian sympathies, especially favoring the working class; in 1898 he aroused official wrath by his defense of Dreyfus, and was sentenced to imprisonment, being obliged to seek refuge in England. He died of accidental asphyxiation.