Bernard-Lazare: Antisemitism and the Problems of Jewish Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century France

This 1978 book examines the French Jewish writer Bernard-Lazare (1865–1903) and the Dreyfus Affair, in which he was the prime mover.

Nelly Wilson (Author)

9780521157919, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 July 2011

366 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm, 0.5 kg

Bernard-Lazare (1865–1903) was a French Jewish writer who was the prime mover in the Dreyfus Affair. The Dreyfus Affair lies at the centre of this 1978 book as it was the turning point in Bernard-Lazare's life. In the first part of the book Dr Wilson traces his early career: his defence of the Symbolist aesthetic as a philosophy of freedom; his sympathy for oppressed individuality and minority groups, and his passion for social justice; above all his analysis of antisemitism where, initially, he argued for social assimilation only to reject such an idea later in favour of a concept of cultural pluralism. The second part offers a history of the Dreyfus Affair and the way Bernard-Lazare drew attention to its grave irregularities. Finally, the book explores how he came to espouse Jewish nationalism in a much more radical way than did Herzl, the founder of Zionism.

Frontispiece facing
Preface
Part I. Before the Dreyfus Affair: 1. Roots, milieu and Symbolism
2. The journalist with a mission
3. Anarchism
4. 'Le Judaisme voilál'ennemi'
5. Antisemitism, its history and causes
Part II. The Dreyfus Affair: 6. Involvement
7. The Battle: Une erreur judiciaire: la vérité sur l'Affaire Dreyfus
8. Behind the front lines
9. The moral syndicate: the dreyfusard movement
Part III. After the Dreyfus Affair: 10. Antisemitism reconsidered
11. Zionism
12. Last battles and last works
Epilogue
Plates
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]