caption death_date death_place birth_place nationality name birth_date image article_title birth_name alma_mater
portrait of hippolyte taine by léon bonnat . 5 march 1893 paris , france vouziers , france french hippolyte taine 21 april 1828 hippolyte taine.jpg hippolyte taine
 hippolyte adolphe taine École normale supérieure
hippolyte taine

hippolyte adolphe taine -lrb- 21 april 1828 -- 5 march 1893 -rrb- was a french critic and historian .
he was the chief theoretical influence of french naturalism , a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism .
literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him .
taine is particularly remembered for his three-pronged approach to the contextual study of a work of art , based on the aspects of what he called `` race , milieu , and moment '' .
taine had a profound effect on french literature ; the 1911 `` encyclopædia britannica '' asserted that `` the tone which pervades the works of zola , bourget and maupassant can be immediately attributed to the influence we call taine 's . ''
