Les « petits naturalistes » et Émile Zola : redécouvrir ceux que le maître de Médan éclipsa

Abstract

Those that the history of literature calls « petits naturalistes » are often considered as minor writers, as if they had presented an interest only because they were part of the entourage of Émile Zola. Otherwise, when we take the time to read their works, it quickly seems obvious that Paul Alexis, Henry Céard and Léon Hennique knew how to take their distances from the master and, moreover, that they each had a particular style. In their vision of the world, of humanity, the way they managed their stories, their approach of narrativity and their games with narrative genres and forms, they turned out to have a great importance in the transition between the end of the 19th century and 20th in the question of arts and literature.