Bibliography
(1840-1902)
. Born April 2, 1840 in Paris, in the Italo-French family: an Italian father was a civil engineer
. Childhood and school years, Emil held in Aix-en-Provence, where one of his closest friends was the artist P. Cezanne. He was not quite seven years old when his father died, leaving his family in distress. In 1858, counting on help from my friends of the deceased husband, Mrs.
Zola moved with her son in Paris.
In early 1862 Emil managed to find a place in the publishing house 'Ashet'. After working for about four years, he resigned in hopes of securing their existence literary work. In 1865
Zola published his first novel - a tough, thinly veiled autobiography, Confessions of Claude (La Confession de Claude, 1865). The book gave him a scandalous reputation, which further multiplied ardent defense E. Manet painting in its review of an art exhibition 1866.
Approximately in 1868 in
Zola appeared intent series of novels dealing with the same family (Rugon-Makkar), whose fate is studied for four or five generations. The variety of novelistic plots gave the opportunity to show many aspects of French life during the Second Empire. The first books of the series did not arouse much interest, but the seventh volume, West (L'Assommoir, 1877), gained great success and brought
Zola as the fame and wealth. He bought a house in Meudon near Paris, and gathered around him young writers (among them J. K. Huysmans and Guy de Maupassant), formed a short-lived 'naturalistic school'.
Subsequent novels of the series were met with great interest - they have the same zeal reviled and praised. Twenty volumes of the cycle Rugon-Makkar constitute major literary achievement of
Zola, although it should be noted and prior written Therese Raken (Thrse Raquin, 1867) - a thorough study of the feelings of remorse, grasps the killer and his accomplice. In the last years of life
Zola created two cycles: three cities (Les Trois Villes, 1894-1898) - Lourdes (Lourdes), Rome (Rome), Paris (Paris); and the Four Gospels (Les Quatre vangiles, 1899-1902), left unfinished (the fourth volume was not written).
Zola became the first novelist who created a series of books about the members of one family. His example was followed by many in t.ch. J. Duhamel (Chronicle Pasquier), D. Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga) and D. Masters (book on Savage). One of the reasons that prompted
Zola to elect a loop structure, was the desire to show the effect of the laws of heredity. Rugon-Makkar are the offspring of feeble-minded woman who dies in the last volume of the series, reaching a hundred years old and completely bereft of reason. From her children - one legal and two illegal - take the top three branches of the genus. First is represented prosperous Rugonami, . Members of this family appear in these novels, . as His Excellency Eugц?ne Rugon (Son Excellence Eugne Rougon, . 1876) - a study of political machinations in the reign of Napoleon III; Mining (La Cure, . 1871) and Money (L'Argent, . 1891), . which deals with land ownership and speculation in securities,
. The second branch of the family - the family Murr. Octave Murr, . ambitious philanderer in scale (Pot-Bouille, . 1882), . creates one of the first Parisian department stores in the pages of Ladies happiness (Au Bonheur des dames, . 1883), . while other family members are more than modest life, . like the village priest Serge Murr in a mysterious and poetic novel Misdemeanor Abbot Murr (La Faute de l'Abb Mouret, . 1875),
. Representatives of the third branch, Makkar, differ wildly uneven, as their ancestor, Antoine Makkar was an alcoholic. Members of this family play a prominent role in the most powerful novels of
Zola - such, . a belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris, . 1873), . which recreate the atmosphere of the central market of the capital; Trap, . which depicted the harsh tones of the life of the Parisian workers in the 1860's, Nana (Nana, . 1880), . whose heroine, . representative of the third generation Makkar, . becomes a prostitute and her sexual magnetism causes confusion among the upper crust; Germinal (Germinal, . 1885), .
Zola's greatest works, . dedicated to the miners' strike in the mines of northern France; Creativity (L'Oeuvre, . 1886), . which include the characteristics of many famous artists and writers era; Earth (La Terre, . 1887), . story about peasant life, a man-beast (La Bte humaine, . 1890), . which describes the life of railway workers, . and, . Finally, . Devastation (La Dbcle, . 1892), . image of the Franco-Prussian War and the first major military novel in French literature,
.
By the end of the cycle (1903)
Zola enjoyed worldwide fame and, supposedly, was the largest since the French writer Victor Hugo. The more sensational was his intervention in the Dreyfus affair (1897-1898).
Zola came to the conclusion that Alfred Dreyfus, an officer of the French General Staff, who is Jewish, in 1894 he had been unjustly convicted of selling military secrets to Germany. Exposing the top army, bearing the main responsibility for an obvious miscarriage of justice, has taken the form of an open letter to the President of the Republic with the title I accuse (J'accuse, 1898). Sentenced for defamation to a year in prison,
Zola fled to England and was able to return to his homeland in 1899, when the situation changed in favor of Dreyfus.
September 28th, 1902
Zola died suddenly in his Paris apartment. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning - 'accident', most likely, customized by his political enemies.
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