Naturalism（1880s-1920s）
I. Historical Background
● Industrialism
• Industrialism produced financial giants as well as an industrial proletariat.
• Slums appeared in great numbers and the city poor lived a life of insecurity, suffering, and violence.
• Self-reliance disappeared in the fast development of economy.
● Darwinism (Origin of Species)
the struggle for existence (purpose) survival of the fittest (principle) natural selection (process)
● Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer)
• The weak were diminished and their cultures delimited, while the strong grew in power and in cultural influence over the weak.
• The weak and stupid would fall victim in the natural course of events to economic forces.
● Emile Zola’s theory:
• The purpose of a novelist was to be a scientist, to place his characters in a situation and then to watch the influences of heredity and environment destroy them, or, if they were good enough, to watch them overcome the inimical force of heredity and environment.
II. Naturalism 自然主义
• In literature, it refers to the theory that literary composition should aim at a detached, sci
entific objectivity in the treatment of natural man.
• It developed on the basis of realism but went a step further than it in portraying social reality.
• Naturalism was a new and harsher realism.
● Naturalism: Basic Ideas
• Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment and they lack freedom of their own will. Brutish impulses dictate human behavior. All of their actions are controlled.
• The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires. Life becomes a struggle for survival.
• The struggle of the individual to adapt to environment, the fight for the spouse and the Darwinian idea of the survival of the fittest become natural concerns of naturalist fiction and drama.
● Features of naturalist writing
• Naturalist writers turned literary creation into a mechanical record of society, in a way of attempting to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness. They never made comments on the characters and their behaviors.
• The characters were often figures of low social and economic classes, with animal desire, some physically strong but weak-willed figures. There were also some healthy and lofty persons, but their ending were miserable.
• The viewpoint from which the writers understood problems was amoral, or non-moral. They stressed men had no free will, their lives were controlled by heredity and environment.
• Their material was infinite.
III. Major Naturalists
衡水湖简介● Stephen Crane 斯蒂芬·克瑞恩 艾杨格(1881-1900)
The Red Badge of Courage 《红英勇勋章》
● Jack London 杰克·伦敦（1876-1916 ）
The Call of the Wild 《荒野的呼唤》 White Fang 《白牙》/《雪虎》
Sea Wolf 《海狼》 Martin Eden 《马丁·伊登》
本a● Frank Norris 弗兰克·诺瑞斯（1870-1902 ）
McTeague 《麦克提格》(a textbook and manifesto of American naturalism) The Octopus 《章鱼》
● Theodore Dreiser 西奥多·德莱塞（1871—1945 ）: (the greatest literary naturalist)
Sister Carrier 《嘉莉妹妹》(the greatest naturalistic work) Jennie Gerhardt《珍妮姑娘》
● Henry 欧·亨利 (1862 --- 1910)
“The Gift of the Magi” 麦琪的礼物 “The Cop and the Anthem” 警察与赞美诗
IV. American Naturalism
• It first came into existence in Maggie, a Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane.
• It had its manifesto in McTeague by Frank Norris.
• It came to its maturity in Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser.
Stephen Crane 斯蒂芬·克瑞恩 (1881-1900)
I introduction
• Novelist， poet
• pioneer in the naturalistic tradition
• precursors of Imagist poetry: Crane, Dickinson
II. His major works
● Novels
• Maggie: A Girl of the Streets 《街头女郎玛吉》: (the first naturalistic novel in America)
• The Red Badge of Courage 《红英勇勋章》
● Poems ：The Black Riders 《黑衣骑士》雪虎
● Short stories
• “The Open Boat” 一叶扁舟
• “The Blue Hotel” 蓝旅馆青年节
• “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”新娘来到黄天镇
III. The Open Boat 一叶扁舟（First published in 1897）
• It was based on Crane’s experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent.
IV. Theme 1: Cosmic Irony 宇宙反讽
● Cosmic irony is the belief that the universe is so large and man is so small that the universe is indifferent to the plight of man.
● Three specific examples of cosmic irony:
• the power of the ocean against the insignificance of the boat
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