EMILE
(ay-MEEL)
Emile
Zola: 19th
century French novelist
Common
clues: Author
Zola; "Nana" author Zola; French novelist Zola
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Video:
Life
of Emile Zola – Trailer (1937)
Émile
Zola
(April 2, 1840 – September 29, 1902) was an influential
French novelist, the most important example of the literary
school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political
liberalization of France.
Born
in Paris, France, the son of an Italian engineer, Émile
Zola spent his childhood in Aix-en-Provence and was educated at
the Collège Bourbon. At age 18 he returned to Paris where
he studied at the Lycée Saint-Louis. After working at
several low-level clerical jobs, he began to write a literary
column for a newspaper. Controversial from the beginning, he did
not hide his disdain for Napoleon III, who used the Second
Republic as a vehicle to become Emperor.
More
than half of Zola's novels were part of a set of 20 collectively
known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Set in France's Second Empire, it
traces the hereditary influence of violence, alcoholism, and
prostitution in two branches of a family, the respectable Rougons
and the disreputable Macquarts, for five generations.
As
he described his plans for the series, "I want to portray,
at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that
cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things
that progress is making available and is derailed by its own
momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new
world."
Zola
and the painter Paul Cezanne were friends from childhood and in
youth, but broke in later life over Zola's fictionalized
depiction of Cezanne and the bohemian life of painters in his
novel L'Oeuvre
(The
Masterpiece,
1886).
He
risked his career and even his life on January 13, 1898, when his
"J'accuse"
was published on the front page of the Paris daily, L'Aurore.
The paper was run by Ernest Vaughan and Georges Clemenceau, who
decided that the controversial story would be in the form of an
open letter to the President, Félix Faure. J'accuse
accused the French government of anti-Semitism and of wrongfully
placing Alfred Dreyfus in jail. Zola was brought to trial for
libel for publishing J'Accuse
on February 7, 1898 and was convicted on February 23. Zola
declared that the conviction and transportation to Devil's Island
of the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus came after a false
accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. The
case, known as the Dreyfus affair, had divided France deeply
between the reactionary army and church and the more liberal
commercial society. The ramifications continued for years, so
much so that on the 100th anniversary of Émile Zola's
article, France's Roman Catholic daily paper, "La Croix",
apologized for its anti-Semitic editorials during the Dreyfus
affair.
Zola
was a leading light of France and his letter formed a major
turning-point in the Dreyfus affair, causing the captain's case
to be reopened, whereupon he was acquitted. In the course of
events, Zola was convicted of libel, sentenced, and removed from
the Legion of Honor. Rather than go to jail, he fled to England.
Soon he was allowed to return in time to see the government fall.
Dreyfus was convicted again, but was ultimately freed, in large
part due to the moral force of Zola's arguments. Zola said "The
truth is on the march, and nothing shall stop it." In 1906,
Dreyfus was completely exonerated by the Supreme Court.
Zola
died in Paris on September 29, 1902 of carbon monoxide poisoning
caused by a stopped chimney. His enemies were blamed, but nothing
was proved. He was initially buried in the Cimetière de
Montmartre in Paris, but on June 4, 1908, almost six years after
his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon.
On
January of 1998 President Jacques Chirac held a memorial to honor
the centenary of J'Accuse.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Émile Zola".
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