French Literature Reviews - 2026

C. Anfray, Zola biblique
Novel and Narrative Prose

Review in Acta Fabula: “Les Rougon-Macquart : histoire biblique d'une famille sous le Second Empire” by Gaël Prigent.

Clélia Anfray, Zolabiblique. La Bible dans les Rougon-Macquart

Paris: Cerf, coll. “Littérature”, 2010.

240 p.

EAN 9782204093149.

Price 27EUR

Publisher's overview:

In Zola biblique, Clélia Anfray reveals an unexpected side of Zola. She examines the intimate, yet conflicting and paradoxical relationship between Zola and the Holy Book. The Rougon-Macquart cycle stands as a striking example of the author's ambiguities: major “myths” (such as original sin, Abel and Cain, or the Babylonian city) are reinterpreted in unconventional ways. This raises numerous questions: what are we to make of the strange paradox that turns an author commonly perceived as a fatalist into the novelist of “original sin” and perverted sexuality? How are we to understand that transgression within the cycle is exclusively the woman's doing, and virginity her only virtue? What can be said of this belief in a future brotherhood, when every relationship between brothers inevitably ends in actual or symbolic fratricide? When Abel and Cain at times even seem to merge? Finally, what are we to think of the socialist justice advocated in Germinal, where everyone is rewarded not according to their “needs,” but based on “merit”—which is nonetheless incompatible with the naturalist conception of heredity—or “worse” still: according to their “works”? Bringing these questions to light, while also attempting to answer them, is the ultimate ambition of this essay.

The nineteenth-century French novel frequently engaged with religious texts, secularizing sacred narratives to examine contemporary social and moral anxieties under the Second Empire. Within this broader literary context, Émile Zola's naturalism is often associated with scientific determinism, materialism, and a critical view of institutional religion. Yet, as studies in nineteenth-century poetics frequently demonstrate, nineteenth-century fiction drew deeply on scriptural archetypes even while rejecting traditional dogma.

Specifically, the volume addresses how major biblical myths—including original sin, the story of Abel and Cain, and the imagery of the Babylonian city—are reinterpreted within Les Rougon-Macquart. The work examines the paradox of an author often viewed as a fatalist engaging with the concept of original sin, alongside questions concerning gender roles, transgression, and fraternity within the cycle. It further considers the socialist justice depicted in Germinal in relation to naturalist theories of heredity. Readers interested in nineteenth-century French fiction and the intersection of literature and religion may find this essay relevant.