Emile Zola, the Cochonnerie of naturalist literature, and the Judensau.

Abstract

Scholars often identify pig images of Emile Zola during the Dreyfus Affair as an overt anti-Jewish motif meant to discredit the Dreyfusard cause. I will trace how Zola was identified as a Jewish cultural infiltrator throughout his controversial literary career, not just in the aftermath of J'Accuse. Medieval symbols of antisemitism, specifically those related to the motif of the Judensau (Jew-pig), had been recruited into the service of anti-naturalism as early as 1868, and three decades later these same symbols were merely reappropriated to represent Zola's Dreyfusism. I will consider the medieval, antisemitic pictorial sources that are drawn upon for the massive visual degradation of Zola, first as naturalist author of novelistic obscenities in the 1880s and then as a treacherous Christian supporter of Alfred Dreyfus.

Keywords: Judensau, Emile Zola, Dreyfusard

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In the popular narrative of the Dreyfus Affair, Emile Zola (1840-1902) plays the French hero. Convinced that the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus had been wrongly convicted of spying for the Germans, Zola pens the unprecedented J'Accuse (January 13, 1898), condemning the French government and military of a willful miscarriage of justice. The front-page publication of J'Accuse propels Zola into a leadership role in the pro-Dreyfus camp, or, as they come to be known, the Dreyfusard intellectuals. Zola's audacious article ultimately gave Dreyfus a second chance, and it ensured that Zola would be remembered not only as an art critic and writer but also as an "engaged intellectual," an activist whose ammunition was his celebrity status and public approval. As was so often the case with the men and women who banded together to proclaim the injustice of the Dreyfus case, Zola's reputation became a subject of public scrutiny and debate.