Inaug-Diss.--Berlin. / Vita. "Literatur": p. [7]-11.

Diss.--Regensburg Universität, 1997. / Bibliogr. p. 328-353. Filmogr. p. 354-356.

Th. doct.--Lettres--Angers, 19. / Bibliogr. p. 532-542.

According to classical Greek mythology, Eros was one of the first beings to arise out of Chaos and represented the concepts of harmony and union necessary in creating the world and its creatures. The primary fear that Zola addresses (and exploits) in Germinal is the fear of anarchy and of social chaos. This is accomplished thanks to a relentless textual insistency on eroticism. This emphasis on human sexuality, along with Zola's ground-breaking treatment of the working class, represents the breaking of the two greatest literary taboos in nineteenth century French literature: the vivid depiction of bodily urges and the minute examination of the proletariat. Our thesis is that the revolutionary impact and the incontestable literary longevity of Germinal stem largely from Zola's successful shattering of these timorous traditions--the logical extension of reigning bourgeois morals--via his persistent depictions of the corporeal and the erotic. This essay, therefore, is an attempt to analyze, to describe, and to reconcile the diverse and contradictory elements which comprise the erotic subtext in Zola's most famous novel, that is to provide an erotic reading of Germinal. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

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Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

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This thesis proposes to analyze the dichotomous representation of the female model as benevolent and malevolent in three 19th-century French novels. Honoré de Balzac's The Unknown Masterpiece (1834), Jules and Edmond de Goncourt's Manette Salomon (1867), and Émile Zola's The Masterpiece (1886) are all novels set in artist's workshops and all portray the female model as playing an essential role in determining the success, then demise of the male painter. My study of these texts will therefore focus on the juxtaposed presentations of the female models in terms of their relationships to the male artists. It will reveal how as the artists succeed in transforming their models' bodies into aesthetic nudes and containing these representations within the parameters of their canvases as a means of asserting their authority, the models are positively portrayed. On the contrary, when the artists fail to transform and contain their models' bodies, these female characters are negatively depicted as being the source of the painters' ruin. By examining this dichotomous representation of the female models, I will reveal the complex means by which the patriarchal order within the texts oppresses the female characters. / Master of Arts

Emile Zola é conhecido por sua carreira como romancista, mas sua iniciação como escritor deu-se também como crítico de arte entre as décadas de 1860 a 1896, anos nos quais o escritor frequentou os ateliês de célebres pintores, cafés e os Salões. A partir da análise dos artigos de jornal presente na compilação Escritos sobre a arte, o trabalho tem por objetivo mostrar como a relação com os pintores impressionistas leva Zola a utilizar os procedimentos picturais desse movimento para descrever os quadros expostos nos Salões de 1866 a 1880. Na primeira parte do trabalho, será apresentado um panorama dos Salões e a gênese desse gênero novo por Denis Diderot, as questões levantadas por Charles Baudelaire em seus escritos sobre a arte e a influência de ambas as críticas para a construção do método de análise de Zola. A segunda parte do trabalho visa apresentar as questões levantadas pelo crítico no que diz respeito à escolha do júri que selecionava as obras, o momento artístico e sua teoria estética. A questão principal deste trabalho será discutida detalhadamente na terceira parte deste trabalho, em que o objetivo principal será identificar os procedimentos pictóricos impressionistas nas análises de Zola e os desdobramentos dessas técnicas na produção da sua crítica de arte. / Émile Zola is known for his novelist career, but his initiation happened as an art critic between the years 1860 and 1896, in which he attended renowned painters\' studios, cafés and the Salons. Starting from the analysis on newspapers articles, found in the compilation Writings on Art, this dissertation intends to show how Zolas relation with Impressionist painters made him use this movement\'s pictorial proceedings in order to analyze the pictures exposed in 1866 and 1880 Salons and create narratives from such descriptions. In the first part, an overview about these Salons shall be introduced, as well as this new genre\'s genesis by Denis Diderot, the matters discussed by Charles Baudelaire in his writings on art, and the weight of both these critical modes to Zola\'s own analysis method. The second part aims to introduce the issues he raised concerning the choosing of the jury responsible for selecting works, the artistic moment, and his aesthetic theory. This researchs main point shall be discussed minutely in the third part, whose main goal is to identify the Impressionists pictorial procedures in Zolas analysis and this techniques deployment in his making of critics on art.

Le mot « intime » en français suggère à la fois la convivialité au sein du cercle familial et la conscience intérieure de l’individu. Cette dualité essentielle de l’« intime », qui attire de nombreux écrivains français depuis des siècles, englobe un large éventail de thématiques littéraires, caractérisées par deux courants : la représentation de la vie familiale et les écrits autobiographiques. En règle générale, l’esthétique du naturalisme établie par Zola est considérée comme indifférente à l’égard de la littérature intime, développée par les écrivains romantiques. Cependant, certains de ses romans présentent les caractéristiques de l’écrit de l’intime du XIXe siècle. Dans cette étude, nous nous attacherons à établir le lien intérieur entre La Joie de vivre (1884), L’Oeuvre (1886) et Le Docteur Pascal (1893), trois romans exceptionnellement chargés d’éléments autobiographiques dans la série des Rougon-Macquart. L’intrigue de ces œuvres se déroule au sein du foyer et se concentre sur la psychologie des protagonistes, qui pourraient être définis comme alter ego de l’auteur. Dans La Joie de vivre, Zola projette son angoisse personnelle sur Lazare, jeune pessimiste souffrant de névrose. Dans L’OEuvre, l’auteur exprime sa vision esthétique à travers la création douloureuse du peintre Claude. Dans Le Docteur Pascal, véritable synthèse de la série, Zola manifeste enfin sa croyance optimiste à la vie à travers Pascal, son porte-parole. Le discours de l’« intime » chez Zola, aspect essentiel mais pourtant négligé de son œuvre romanesque, montre ainsi une mise en pratique du roman psychologique que l’auteur semble pourtant vouloir rejeter dans ses écrits « naturaliste ». / This study focuses on the two themes which the word “ intimacy ” refers to : firstly private life in a family, and secondly internal conscience of each individual. Due to the dual meaning of this word, two mainstream themes in the 19th century literature were formed : presentation of familial life and autobiography. In considering “ intimacy ” in naturalism, which have not been taken up until now, the autobiographic nature of Zola’s novels will be brought to light, as compared to autobiography in romanticism. This study examines and analyses three particularly autobiographical novels from total twenty volumes of the Rougon-Macquart series : La Joie de vivre (1884), L’OEuvre (1886) and Le Docteur Pascal (1893), considering those novels as a trilogy. Those three pieces clearly reflect the duality of “ intimacy ”, in depicting family life of the protagonist and, at the same time, the interior mind of Zola who appears as his alter ego. In La Joie de vivre, Zola, as a pessimist suffering neurosis, is depicted through Lazare. In L’OEuvre, Zola, based upon his experience as an art critic, demonstrates his artistic vision through the painter Claude. In Le Docteur Pascal, Zola’s confession full of optimism, contrary to the past after having concluded his works in the Rougon-Macquart series, is reflected in Pascal who is a philosophical scientist. This study analyses how Zola, who has been deemed as a naturalist in sharp contrast to an autobiographical writer, has taken the theme of “ intimacy ” into his novels through his own experience in private life, and how he produced the trilogy novels which are fiction and, at the same time, autobiographical pieces.