Emile Zola in the Pantheon
N 48° 50.781 E 002° 20.709
31U E 451955 N 5410582
Zola was initially buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, but on 4 June 1908, almost six years after his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon.
Waymark Code: WM32W2
Location: France
Date Posted: 02/01/2008
Views: 45
Émile Zola (2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was an influential French writer, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalization of France.
More than half of Zola's novels were part of this set of 20 collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Unlike Balzac who in the midst of his literary career re synthetized his work into La Comédie Humaine, Zola from the outset at the age of 28 had thought of the complete layout of the series. Set in France's Second Empire, the series traces the "environmental" influences of violence, alcohol, and prostitution which became more prevalent during the second wave of the industrial revolution. The series examines two branches of a single family: the respectable (that is, legitimate) Rougons and the disreputable (illegitimate) Macquarts, for five generations.
Émile Zola risked his career and even his life on 13 January 1898, when his "J'accuse" was published on the front page of the Paris daily, L'Aurore. The newspaper 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. Émile Zola's "J'accuse" accused the highest levels of the French Army of obstruction of justice and antisemitism by having wrongfully convicted a Jewish artillery captain, Alfred Dreyfus, to life imprisonment on Devil's Island in French Guyana. Zola declared that Dreyfus' conviction and removal to an island prison came after a false accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. The case, known as the Dreyfus affair, divided France deeply between the reactionary army and church, and the more liberal commercial society. The ramifications continued for many years; on the 100th anniversary of Zola's article, France's Roman Catholic daily paper, La Croix, apologized for its antisemitic editorials during the Dreyfus Affair. As Zola was a leading French thinker, his letter formed a major turning-point in the affair.
The 1898 article by Émile Zola is widely marked in France as the most prominent manifestation of the new power of the Intellectuals (writers, artists, academicians) in shaping public opinion, the media and the State. The power of Intellectuals lasted well into the 1980s, with a peak in the 1960s with Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.
(excerpts from wikipedia)
Description:
See above
Date of birth: 04/02/1840
Date of death: 09/29/1902
Area of notoriety: Literature
Marker Type: Crypt (below ground)
Setting: Indoor
Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 10am - 6.15pm.
Fee required?: Yes
Web site: [Web Link]
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