Therese Raquin - Emile Zola [11]
5 Mitterand, Zola. I., p. 433. The link between the novel and Manet’s painting is a key theme in Mitterand’s biography: for the cat, see also the reference to Olympia on p. 507; and, for the more general links, see the chapter ‘Thérèse et Olympia’, pp. 566-600.
6 Lethbridge, see Further Reading, p. 280.
7 Quoted by Mitterand, Zola. I., p. 441.
8 From Zola’s work of 1881, Les Romanciers naturalistes (quoted by Mitterand, ibid., p. 665).
9 Edmond and Jules Goncourt, Journal. Mémoires de la vie littéraire (Paris: Fasquelle, Flammarion, 1956), vol. 2, p. 474.
10 Revue encyclopédique, vol. XXXIX (1828), p. 117.
11 In his ‘Two Definitions of the Modern Novel’ (quoted by Mitterand, Zola. I., p. 513).
12 See Chapter III, notes 2 and 4.
13 See pp. 3-8.
14 See Mitterand, Zola. I., pp. 163-5.
15 In Mes haines (2nd ed., Paris: Charpentier, 1879, p. 231).
16 See Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle (Paris: Larousse, 1875), article ‘Tempérament’, p. 1578.
17 See Mitterand’s Introduction to the 1970 Garnier-Flammarion edition of Thérèse Raquin, where he gives a table showing all the characteristics of these three, Thérèse, Laurent and Camille, according to the temperament of each.
18 In Le Salut public de Lyon (February 1865).
19 Edmond and Jules Goncourt, Journal, vol. 2, p. 96. This entry for 24 October 1864 was made at the time when the Goncourts were writing Germinie Lacerteux.
20 Émile Zola, Correspondance, ed. B. H. Bakker (Montreal: University of Montreal Press, 1978), vol. I, p. 523.
21 Quoted by Russell Cousins, Zola: Thérèse Raquin (London: Grant and Cutler, 1992), p. 12.
Further Reading
Brown, Frederick, Zola. A Life (New York: Macmillan, 1995)
Hemmings, F. W. J., The Life and Times of Émile Zola (London: Paul Elek, 1977)
Lapp, John C., Zola before the ‘Rougon-Macquart’ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964)
Schumacher, Claude, Zola. Thérèse Raquin (Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1990)
Wilson, Angus, Émile Zola. An Introductory Study of His Novels (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1952)
Two studies of Thérèse Raquin (with quotations in French):
Cousins, Russell, Zola. Thérèse Raquin (London: Grant and Cutler, 1992)
Lethbridge, Robert, ‘Zola, Manet and Thérèse Raquin’ in French Studies, XXXIV, no. 3 (July, 1980), pp. 278-99
Critical Edition (French):
Émile Zola, Thérèse Raquin, ed. François-Marie Mourad (Paris: Petits Classiques Larousse, 2002)
Note on Adaptation and Translation
The relatively simple narrative of Thérèse Raquin, and the fact that it is set almost entirely in one location, soon made Zola consider an adaptation for the theatre. He had written a melodrama from Les Mystères de Marseille, so it was natural for him to think of adapting his other novel of the time for the stage. His play from Thérèse Raquin eventually opened at the Theatre de la Renaissance in Paris on 11 July 1873, where it ran for only nine performances (though it was occasionally revived later).
A more elaborate stage adaptation was made by Marcelle Maurette in 1947, and another by Raymond Rouleau in 1981. The last of these is generally considered the most successful and most faithful to Zola’s presumed intentions, though it is also furthest from the plot of the novel: Rouleau gives Camille overtly homosexual leanings, for example, and makes Suzanne a victim of sexual abuse.
There have also been several versions for the cinema, the best-known being Jacques Feyder’s (now lost) 1928 silent version, a Franco-German co-production, stylistically influenced by German expressionist cinema; and Marcel Carné’s film of 1953, with Simone Signoret and Raf Vallone, which was a success on first release, though it departs considerably from the novel. For example, Carné introduces the character of a sailor who tries to blackmail Thérèse and Laurent after the murder, and he reworks the plot in various other ways to make it more plausible for a twentieth-century audience.
The first English translation of Thérèse Raquin that I can find was one by John