%0 Journal Article
%T The (r)evolution, which (re)turns. (R)evolutionary portrait in the work of Zola: the case of L’Assommoir
%A Rachwalska von Rejchwald, Jolanta
%J Cahiers ERTA
%V 2018
%R 10.4467/23538953CE.18.016.9131
%N Numéro 15  La (r)évolution
%P 93-107
%K révolution, corps romanesque, portrait, description, Zola
%@ 2300-4681
%D 2018
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/cahiers-erta/article/cette-evolution-qui-revient-le-portrait-r-evolutif-dans-loeuvre-demile-zola-le-cas-de-lassommoir
%X Darwin has become the face of a scientific revolution, initiating what T. Kuhn calls a “paradigm shift”. Darwin’s theory undermined the intellectual foundations on which the understanding of the world was based: stability and unchangeability. Darwin replaces them with the idea of a continuous but imperceptible change – evolution – which takes place in the world of living beings. Literature and culture in the 2nd half of the XIXth century succumbs to the power of this theory, which affects the imagination of the creators. Among them is Zola, in whose cycle Les Rougon‐Macquart we find “evolutionary poetics”, which models the way of presenting the characters (social evolution) and their corporality, which is the purpose of the article to demonstrate (an evolutionary portrait of especially Gervaise Macquart). A fictional body becomes a place of constant transformation, (de/re) materialization, which proves the fluid plasticity of life. After Darwin, dynamism replaces the ontology.