ABSTRACT
Zola’s transition was in one sense less dramatic, in that from the start, though using reasoned methods, he was concerned with attack as well as with persuation. Zola’s first writings on the Affair were in November 1897. Zola’s only expressions of anger are reserved for those who have attacked the great and good man to whom the article is devoted, and who have vilified anyone else who dares to defend Dreyfus. Finally, Zola assesses who is responsible for these terrible aberrations. This article appeared on 14 December 1897 in the form of a ‘brochure’. At first sight it seems to have been written in very much the same tone as its predecessors. It is an appeal to the youth of France to rethink its attitudes. The outburst of ‘plot’ imagery in ‘Lettre a la jeunesse’ was but a small part of the total article, of which the main tenor had been far from that of the ‘plot’ theorists.
