Emile Zola, L'œuvre [The work]

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Emile Zola’s

L’Œuvre

[

The Masterpiece

]

was published in 1886 and is the fourteenth novel from his larger work

Les Rougon Macquart.

According to Patrick Brady,

L’Œuvre

was overshadowed by the novels

Germinal

and

La Terre

, but reasserted its importance as being “simple, familier, puissant, et assez noir, à mi-chemin entre l’art romantique et l’art réaliste” [simple, familiar, powerful, and quite dark, half way between romantic art and realist art] (Brady, 1967, 9). In this volume, Zola’s objective is to reveal the impact of hereditary madness through his main character, the painter Claude Lantier, as he is introduced in the family tree of the Rougon Macquart: “Claude Lantier, né en 1842 – mélange fusion – prépondérance morale et physique de la mère,…

3057 words

Citation: Vernier, Béatrice. "L'œuvre". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 August 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35520, accessed 19 March 2024.]

35520 L'œuvre 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.