AUTOGRAPHS BARRÈS (Maurice). Autograph... - Lot 45 - Lynda Trouvé

Lot 45
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Result : 220EUR
AUTOGRAPHS BARRÈS (Maurice). Autograph... - Lot 45 - Lynda Trouvé
AUTOGRAPHS BARRÈS (Maurice). Autograph manuscript signed, 11 ff. (ch. 1-10) in-4 written on the verso of sheets that have already been blackened by the author and whose text is crossed out. Violent text against Zola. This article entitled "Lendemain de bataille" (The day after the battle) is about the vote proposed in the Senate after Zola's death for his burial in the Pantheon. According to Barrès, public opinion is not interested and the Chamber, as well as the Senate, are backing away from this difficult decision. Quoting Kahn and Bourrelier, "the only ones to defend the educational value of Zola's work", Barrès wondered about the advisability of "allowing triviality and coarseness to become necessities of modern literature". Even Jaurès, he claims, who owes it to himself to defend his client well, knows that "bent over Zola's work there escapes an unbearable odor." Zola may be, as he says, a "great river which carries with it all the mixtures of life," but it is also appropriate to recall a writing attributed to Clémenceau about this work in which he sees "an exuberance of human smut intended less to wither than to bring smut to the reader." To compare Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, "the fat indecencies" or "the politeness" of some of them "to the dreary pornographies of Pot Bouille" is out of all proportion. But even admitting that the comparison is possible, it would still be necessary "to find in Zola's work the enthusiasm, the flame, the fertilizing power". (source: notice of an old catalogue).
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