Zola's Repetitions: On Repetition in Zola

Abstract

Repetition is one of the most striking features of Émile Zola's prose style. It was also one of the most frequently commented-upon, and frequently criticized, aspects of his writing among contemporaneous critics. This article reads critical responses to Zola's repetitions, as well as Zola's own comments on matters of style, for what they can reveal about the assumptions at work in fin-de-siècle literary criticism's conception of literary craft. It suggests that the hostility displayed towards Zola's repetitions reveals them to have been a vital technique in the novelist's pursuit of a truly popular, democratic novelistic form.