Abstract
If the earlier Realists had sharp noses for the formative influence of social factors, their keenest appetites generally took them off in pursuit of their prime interest, the individual. Despite Balzac’s constant claim to be portraying social types, the argument and drama of his novels were sharply focused on individual types, often extraordinary, monstrous types: the arch womaniser, Baron Hulot; the embittered poor relation, Cousin Bette, with her terrifying capacity for revenge; the scheming outlaw, Vautrin, with his extraordinary powers of survival. Even as ‘social’ a novel as Mrs Gaskell’s Mary Barton depicted the weavers as widely differing individuals.
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Landes, The Unbound Prometheus (C.U.P., 1969);
M. Tacel, Histoire économique des grandes puissances d l’époque contemporaine (Delagrave, 1963 ).
Richard H. Zakarian, Zola’s ‘Germinal’. A critical study of its primay sources (Droz, 1972); Ida Frandon Autour de ‘Germinal’: le mine et les mineurs (Droz, 1955);
Elliott Grant, Zola’s ‘Germinal’: a critical and historical study (Leicester U.P., 1962);
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© 1977 Maurice Larkin
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Larkin, M. (1977). The Dismal Science: Economic Man. In: Man and Society in Nineteenth-Century Realism. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01661-7_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01661-7_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-01663-1
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