Emile Zola, L'œuvre [The work]

Béatrice Vernier (Lakehead University)

Ed. by Nigel Harkness, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.05: French Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth-Century , 1800-1900.
Vol. editors: David Elwyn Evans (University of St Andrews), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Elisabeth Gerwin (University of Lethbridge), Nigel Harkness (University of Newcastle upon Tyne), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield), Jennifer Yee (University of Oxford)

Dates

First circulation or publication Dec 1885 - 1886

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Emile Zola’s

L’Œuvre

[

The Masterpiece

]

was published in 1886 and is the fourteenth novel from his larger work

Les Rougon Macquart.

According to Patrick Brady,

L’Œuvre

was overshadowed by the novels

Germinal

and

La Terre

, but reasserted its importance as being “simple, familier, puissant, et assez noir, à mi-chemin entre l’art romantique et l’art réaliste” [simple, familiar, powerful, and quite dark, half way between romantic art and realist art] (Brady, 1967, 9). In this volume, Zola’s objective is to reveal the impact of hereditary madness through his main character, the painter Claude Lantier, as he is introduced in the family tree of the Rougon Macquart: “Claude Lantier, né en 1842 – mélange fusion – prépondérance morale et physique de la mère,…

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3057 words

Citation: Vernier, Béatrice. "L'œuvre". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 August 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35520, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Emile Zola, L'œuvre [The work]

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