Naturalism (literature)

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Naturalism in literature is a late 19th-century movement that grew from realism and rejected Romanticism. It aims to depict life with a scientific, objective eye and to explore how forces beyond a person’s control shape behavior.

Key ideas
- Detachment: narrators are impersonal and objective.
- Determinism: events and a character’s fate are shaped by forces like heredity and environment, not by free will.
- Scientific method: fiction should observe life like a controlled experiment, looking for the laws that govern behavior.
- Indifference of the universe: the world often seems indifferent to human life.
- Emphasis on forces: emotion, heredity, and environment are major determinants of what people do.

Origins and influences
- Central figure: Émile Zola, especially his concept of The Experimental Novel (1880).
- Philosophical roots: Auguste Comte’s positivism, Claude Bernard, and Hippolyte Taine.
- Naturalism grew out of realism, taking realism’s concern with fact and impersonality and applying a harsher, more scientific lens.

American and European perspectives
- American view: Frank Norris helped develop naturalism in the U.S., mixing realism and naturalism in ways that differed from Zola. Writers often associated with American naturalism include Stephen Crane, Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, and Norris; Howells and Henry James are often placed closer to realism.
- Notable American works: Crane’s The Open Boat; Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily is sometimes read as naturalist, showing how environment and heredity influence a person’s fate.
- European spread: naturalist writers appeared in many countries—Netherlands (Cooplandt, Couperus, van Eeden, Emants), Denmark (Jens Peter Jacobsen), Germany (Gerhart Hauptmann, Arno Holz, Johannes Schlaf), Belgium (Cyriel Buysse, Stijn Streuvels), Spain (Emilia Pardo Bazán), Brazil (Aluísio de Azevedo).

Criticism and debate
- Some critics argue naturalism waned or never fully existed as a separate movement; an obituary in 1900 claimed its passing.
- Critics have grouped views into four broad camps: early theorists, history-of-idea critics, European-influence critics, and recent theorists.
- Even within the movement, there were differences: Zola’s naturalism emphasized material determinism, while American critics sometimes stressed other aspects of realism and naturalism.

Why it matters
- Naturalism highlights how life can be shaped by forces beyond individual choice—genealogy, social class, poverty, and environment.
- It expanded the scope of literature to include subjects like sexuality, poverty, and other previously taboos, presenting them in a documentary, often stark, style.