ABSTRACT
Zola has always had a negative press from proponents of modernist values. This chapter examines the aesthetic which Zola is working towards: it is concerned with a prospective Zola. In crucial ways Zola's writing seems to represent the antithesis of modernism and, certainly, of postmodernism: his novels appear to lack the qualities of openness and writerliness celebrated by Eco or Barthes. Reframing Zola relates to the continuing debate about where modernism starts and ends, and whether it might begin again, transformed, in the twenty-first century, after the presumed exhaustion of postmodernism. The chapter argues that Zola explores thematic modernity through a more modern style. Zola's formative engagement with the intellectual ideas of his time, particularly the impact of heredity, environment and historical context, connects with new historicism and its emphasis on the effect of wider cultural factors in forming subjectivities and shaping ideological responses.
