Sign-In
Cart
Zola: A life In Naturalism
Paperback
Series: Ink & Identity: The Global East-West Literary Portraits
Literary FiguresLiterary Criticism
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 1787956067
ISBN13: 9781787956063
Publisher: Global East-West (London)
Published: Jan 23 2026
Pages: 188
Weight: 0.57
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781787956063
Publisher: Global East-West (London)
Published: Jan 23 2026
Pages: 188
Weight: 0.57
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The impact of Emile Zola is much wider than French literature; he was the pioneer in the history of realism and socialism. Zola: A Life In Naturalism is an entertaining study of the author who transformed the novel into a strict, scientific investigation into the mechanism of human life.
H.H. Soltan painstakingly recreates the socio-political atmosphere in France during the 19th century, the period of industrial revolution and the extreme stratification of classes, to demonstrate how the so-called experimental technique of Zola was born. The book discusses the influences that Zola had as a child, such as his multicultural background and his early friendship with Paul Cézanne, which led him to the principle of synthesising the scientific observation with the aesthetic innovation.At the centre of the book is a detailed discussion of Les Rougons-Macquart, the twenty volumes of the epic in which Zola explored his themes. Soltan describes how Zola had used the concepts of heredity and environment to explain the deterministic influences on his characters. The book presents various examples of Zola's denial of sentimental treatment of the working class and the responsiveness of emotions, which is the most expressive in literature, in its coalfields of Germinal northwards and in the laundry shops of L'Assommoir.In addition to the literary theory, this book offers a profound insight into the civic responsibility of Zola. It describes his heroic role in the Dreyfus Affair, his subsequent exile in England, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death in 1902. Concluding with the evaluation of Zola in the film and visual narration, Soltan manages to show that the unvarnished truths of Zola are as topical now as they were a hundred years ago. The book is a vital contribution to any research or personal collection on the subject matter of European thought and the evolution of the modern novel.Designed for libraries, universities, and serious readers, this volume combines biography, literary criticism, and cultural history. It is suitable for courses in European literature, realism, modern intellectual history, and social theory.
Also from
Soltan, H. H.
Also in
Literary Figures
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
$67.50
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Cirino, Mark
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Hardcover
$37.95
Go Deep and Take Plenty of Root: A Prairie-Norwegian Father, Rebellion in Minneapolis, Basement Zen, Growing Up, Growing Tender
Storlie, Erik Fraser
Paperback
$15.59
Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival
Greenblatt, Stephen
Hardcover
$30.39
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
$18.90
Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A. A. Milne and the Creation of Winnie-The-Pooh
Brandreth, Gyles
Hardcover
$29.70
Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Steinbeck, John
Paperback
$17.10
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
$28.50
Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft: A Memoir on Writing (Large Print Edition)
Coben, Harlan
Paperback
$32.78
The Village on the Edge of the World: Writing and Surviving in Ceausescu's Romania
Müller, Herta
Hardcover
$28.45
The War for Middle-Earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933-1945
Loconte, Joseph
Hardcover
$28.49
Miss Greene's Secret: Based on the True Story of the Black Librarian Who Shaped the Morgan Library
Antona, Nicolas
Hardcover
$24.69
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
$18.04
String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis: A Library of America Special Publication
Wallace, David Foster
Hardcover
$21.80
Mon Cher Amour: The Love Letters of Albert Camus and Maria Casares, 1944-1959
Camus, Albert
Hardcover
$54.00
The Agatha Christie Cure: What Reading the Queen of Crime Taught Me about Life
Rentzenbrink, Cathy
Hardcover
$30.40
Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece the Sun Also Rises
Blume, Lesley M. M.
Paperback
$20.89
Henry and June: From a Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary (1931-1932) of Anais Nin
Nin, Anaïs
Paperback
$18.04
The World of Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None a 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle: Illustrated by Ruby Ash
Agatha Christie Ltd, Agatha Christie
Other
$23.99