Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (21 April 1828 – 5 March 1893) 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".