The Dream (Le rêve ) is the sixteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola written in 1888. “The Dream” is a love idyll concerning a poor embroideress, Angelique, and the son of a wealthy aristocratic family, set against the backdrop of a sleepy cathedral town in northern France.
The work reveals many of Zola's characteristic themes, in particular the conflict between heredity and environment, between spirituality and sensuality between the powerful and the powerless. The dream of Angelique is at once reality and illusion, and this interplay provides the driving force of the novel. It’s a poem of passion.