Reactions to Critical Comments by Pompeu Gener on Émile Zola and his epigones

Abstract

Pompeu Gener, Catalan defender of Postivism and Darwinism, since 1880 criticised Émile Zola and his followers, branding them pseudoscientific, merchant, vulgar and fatalist, in several writings, most of them collected in Literaturas malasanas (1894). These invectives were responded with different attitudes towards Naturalism and pathography, accusing its author of plagiarizing Max Nordau and Friedrich Nietzsche. While they did not reconcile him with reactionary anti-Zolists, some positivists considered the position of his coreligionist incongruous, and even, paradoxically, more idealistic writers also stood up for Zolism.

Keywords

• naturalismo
• patografía
• Émile Zola
• Pompeu Gener
• Max Nordau
• Friedrich Nietzsche.