Interpretation as Awakening from Zola's Le Rêve

Perhaps the often hostile critical reaction to Zola's Le Rêve may in part be due to the way the novel seeks to model its audience. While the heroine, Angélique, participates fully as a reader in the fantasy component of the texts she consumes (La Legende dorée), critical readers tend to distance themselves from the narrated fantasy by engaging in their own analytical activity. This essay will draw on Norman Holland's The Dynamics of Literary Response to explain why, as Angelique experiences literature as dream, the critic, who dissociates himself from her, is awakened to the need for interpretation. (REZ)