French novelist and journalist (1840-1902), the principal theorist and practitioner of literary Naturalism. Author of the Rougon-Macquart cycle of 20 novels tracing heredity and environment across French society. His open letter J'Accuse (1898) defending Alfred Dreyfus is a landmark of public intellectual courage.
Established Naturalism as a literary method—applying scientific observation to social reality—and demonstrated the power of the novelist as a public moral force through the Dreyfus Affair.
No conceptual lineage found.
No conceptual posterity found.
Discussing
Ask anything about Emile Zola — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.
Sign in to start a conversation.