Abstract EN:

The dream, or the nightmare, remains discreet in Zola's work, though it is not absent. It cannot be, as naturalistic fiction endeavours to devoid it of its spirituality, so as to engrain it within the sleeper's concrete life, that is to say their body. This also follows physiologists' step : turning the dream into an object for scientific investigation. In their (and Zola's) views, sleep induces a weakening of the will that accounts for the coming of mental representations during it. As for their contents, it is mainly linked with the use of memory or the reactivation of sensitive impressions. The identities of Zola's dreamers is also redolent of a doxa borrowed from physiologists. But science is not the only one that must be taken into account. To begin with, literary traditions – premonitions, mainly – are to be found in naturalistic fiction, which has to provide them a new meaning and a new legitimacy. Then, Zola feels hindered by what he calls the « baroque » in dreams, with all its metamorphoses, which he reduces or makes disappear. Finally, the contrast between dreams and nightmares, neatly polarized, prolongs or discloses aspirations, obsessive fears and anguishes, that are tale-telling about the creator (and not only about his creatures). But we must also talk about « dream-states », be it hallucinations, visions, extases, deliriums, which are numerous : their disturbing connexion with dreams shows that it can, rather worryingly, lead one to madness. Our writer finds himself faced with the task of introducing order, or a rational organization, into this scale of states, the delimitation of which is all but clear and reassuring.