“Largo a noi, all’alta battaglia”: Zola’s engagement in Italian perspective

Abstract

In a few of his novels belonging to the series Les Rougon-Macquart, especially in Germinal, Zola develops the relationship between literature and politics in the most powerful way: actually, these novels come to shook or to awaken readers, and sometimes to urge them to political engagement, exactly because they are not programmatically engaged; and, of course, they arouse very different reactions. We represent here two of the most interesting ones: a harsh criticism of Germinal by Edoardo Scarfoglio, one among the sharpest journalists of the time; and a deeply affected commemoration of Zola by Filippo Turati, the leader of Italian Socialist Party.