Le Rêve (novel)
Author | Émile Zola |
---|---|
Country | France |
Language | French |
Series | Les Rougon-Macquart |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | Charpentier (book form) |
Publication date | 1888 (book form) |
Media type | Print (Serial, Hardback & Paperback) |
Preceded by | L'Argent |
Followed by | La Conquête de Plassans |
Le rêve (The Dream) is the sixteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola. It is about an orphan girl who falls in love with a nobleman, and is set in the years 1860–1869.
The novel was published by Charpentier in October 1888 and translated into English by Eliza E. Chase as The Dream in 1893 (reprinted in 2005). Other recent translations are by Michael Glencross (Peter Owen 2005), Andrew Brown (Hesperus Press 2005), and Paul Gibbard (Oxford World's Classics 2018).[1]
Plot summary
Le rêve is a simple tale of the orphan Angélique Marie (b. 1851), adopted by a couple of embroiderers, the Huberts, whose marriage is blighted by a childlessness which they attribute to a curse uttered by Mme Hubert's mother on her deathbed. Angélique is enthralled by the tales of the
Her dream is realized when she falls in love with Félicien d'Hautecœur, the last in an old family of knights, heroes, and nobles in the service of
Relation to the other Rougon-Macquart novels
Zola's plan for the Rougon-Macquart novels was to show how
Furthermore, Angélique has a temper and experiences serious mood swings, becoming as passionate as any one of her relatives. Zola strongly implies that, without the upbringing by her adoptive parents and the influence of the cathedral and The Golden Legend, Angélique could easily have been fallen prey to her passions and ended up as a prostitute (like her cousin Nana).
In Le docteur Pascal, Zola describes Angélique as being a blend of the characteristics of her parents to such a degree that no trace of them shows up in the child. Angélique's mother is Sidonie Rougon, who plays a significant (though brief) role in La curée and appears briefly in L'œuvre. (Angélique's father is unknown.) Sidonie is unfeeling and nearly inhuman, a cold, dry woman incapable of love. She is a professional procuress, involved in every shady calling, a seller of "anything and everything."
In Le docteur Pascal (set in 1872), it is revealed that Sidonie has become the austere financial manager of a
Adaptations
The novel was dramatized as an opera of the same name in four acts composed by Alfred Bruneau, produced June 18, 1891, at the Opéra-Comique to a libretto by Louis Gallet.
It was also adapted as two French films, both called Le Rêve and both directed by Jacques de Baroncelli: one in 1921 (a silent film) and one in 1931.
Sources
- Brown, F. (1995). Zola: A life. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
- Zola, E. Le doctor Pascal, translated as Doctor Pascal by E.A. Vizetelly (1893).
- Zola, E. Le rêve, translated as The Dream by Andrew Brown (Hesperus Press 2005).
References
- ^ https://global.oup.com/ukhe/product/the-dream-9780198745983?cc=au&lang=en& Oxford University Press accessed 13/7/2018
External links
- Le Rêve at Project Gutenberg (French)
- The Dream at Project Gutenberg (English)
- Site about the opera Le rêve by Bruneau (in French)
- Le Rêve at IMDb silent) (French) (1921) (
- Le Rêve at IMDb(1931) (French)
- (in French) Le Rêve, audio version