Naturalism

A literary movement whose leader was Emile Zola (1840-1902), for whom the writer, in the same way as a scientist, must necessarily double as ‘an observer and an experimenter.’ Presented in his Roman expérimental (1880), his method took full expression in the great cycle of novels Les Rougon-Macquart, histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire (The Rougon-Macquarts, a natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire) (1871-1893), a vast ensemble amongst which L'Assomoir (1877) and Germinal (1885) in particular stand out. In it he is attentive to the body and the social conditions which determine the lives of individuals. This led him, as a generous witness of his times, to take up fully the cause of humanist socialism, and on a similar note that of the falsely accused Captain Dreyfus.