Individuo biologico e personaggio fisiologico: un percorso tra Claude Bernard e la letteratura

The paper aims to analyse the relationship between the thought of the founder of the modern clinic Claude Bernard and the literature of Émile Zola. Starting from the “philoso-phy” of the French clinician and passing through the “scene” of the laboratory (Bernard, but also Charcot) and the construction of what can be defined as “physiological character”, the paper tries to identify at the same time the transformation in the reading of (and in the “gaze” on) human phenomenon, started from the revolution of modern biology, and the crucial passage for the construction of the “protagonist” of the great modern novel.