Bashkirtseff
Orig | CZ

Edmond de Goncourt

Person - Literary Figure Comprehensive Aktualizováno: 2025-12-07

Research Status: Comprehensive Last Updated: 2025-12-07 Diary Coverage: Preface (1884) Type: Person - Literary Figure

Overview

Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de Goncourt (1822-1896) was a French writer, literary critic, art critic, and book publisher, celebrated as one of the founding figures of literary naturalism along with his brother Jules de Goncourt (1830-1870). Together, the Goncourt brothers pioneered the concept of "document humain" that profoundly influenced the development of French naturalist literature.

Literary Significance

The Goncourt brothers were constant collaborators who made significant contributions to:

  • Development of the naturalist novel
  • Social history and art criticism
  • The concept of "documents humains" (human documents)

Their 1864 preface to Germinie Lacerteux articulated the principles of naturalism, providing a model for documenting social realities with clinical precision that directly influenced Émile Zola's development of literary realism.

Major Works

Collaborative Novels (with Jules)

  • Charles Demailly (1860) - world of journalism and literature
  • Soeur Philomène (1861) - medicine and hospital life
  • Renée Mauperin (1864) - upper middle-class society
  • Germinie Lacerteux (1864) - realistic novel of working-class life, based on their servant Rose
  • Manette Salomon (1867) - the artistic world

Edmond's Solo Works (after Jules's death in 1870)

  • La Fille Élisa (1877) - social realism based on a real trial and prison visits
  • Various novels marking departure from collaborative naturalism toward refined aestheticism

The Goncourt Journal

The brothers began their monumental Journal in 1851, and Edmond continued it for 26 years after Jules's death. This diary weaves through every social stratum of Parisian life, full of:

  • Critical literary judgments
  • Scabrous anecdotes
  • Descriptive sketches
  • Literary gossip
  • Thumbnail portraits of contemporaries

The complete Journal is both a revealing autobiography and a monumental history of social and literary life in 19th-century Paris.

Connection to Marie Bashkirtseff

In her 1884 preface, written months before her death, Marie deliberately invoked Goncourt alongside Zola and Maupassant as validators of her diary's worth as a "document humain":

"C'est très intéressant comme document humain. Demandez à M. Zola, et même à M. de Goncourt et même à Maupassant."

Marie's appeal to Goncourt was particularly apt, as: 1. The Goncourt brothers pioneered the "document humain" concept she claimed for her diary 2. Their own Journal demonstrated that personal diaries could achieve literary significance 3. Their emphasis on clinical observation and psychological truth aligned with Marie's approach 4. They championed frank presentation of both upper and lower social classes

By May 1884, when Marie wrote her preface, Edmond de Goncourt was the sole surviving brother and a towering figure in French literary naturalism. His validation would have carried tremendous weight for Marie's literary ambitions.

Influence on Naturalism

The Goncourts' frank presentation of social classes and clinical dissection of social relations helped establish literary naturalism and paved the way for:

  • Émile Zola
  • George Moore
  • Joris-Karl Huysmans (who moved from Naturalism to Symbolism)
  • The entire naturalist movement of the Third Republic

Legacy

Above all, the Goncourt brothers are remembered for:

  • Their perceptive, revealing Journal
  • Edmond's legacy: the Académie Goncourt, which annually awards the Prix Goncourt to the author of an outstanding work of French literature

The Académie Goncourt remains one of France's most prestigious literary honors.

Historical Context

Naturalism was a literary movement of particular social urgency that flourished during the first decades of the Third Republic (established 1870). Its lineaments were already visible in Second Empire fiction, including the Goncourts' Germinie Lacerteux (1864), alongside Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1867) and Flaubert's L'Éducation sentimentale (1869).

The movement emphasized:

  • Scientific observation and documentation
  • Influence of heredity and environment on character
  • Unflinching portrayal of all aspects of life, including the sordid
  • Literature as social documentation

%%2025-12-07T14:30:00 RSR: Created comprehensive entry for Edmond de Goncourt based on Marie's preface citation and research into the Goncourt brothers' role in founding literary naturalism and the "document humain" concept%%