The Naturalism Movement in Literature

Literature, throughout history, has brought people together by inciting human emotions and portraying ideas felt across cultures. In the latter half of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century, the predominant culture in Europe was that of industrialism and the explosion of human knowledge and development. The revolutionary scientific discoveries of prominent biologists such as Charles Darwin caused a rift in the culture of the time period, challenging people to look at life in a completely new way. Beginning in the 1870s, many European authors began to write stories based on the emerging idea that one’s life circumstances result from an uncontrollable genetic predisposition (Lehan 3). This movement came to be known as naturalism and spread to America by the turn of the century, influencing authors like Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, and Émile Zola (Matterson). Literary naturalism, the movement that falls between realism and modernism in the evolution of literature, was a rather pessimistic literary movement which aimed to apply Darwinian principles to its characters and plot lines, study the human’s place in nature, and conclude that all fortune and misfortune in life is simply the result of heredity, instinct, and passion.

Naturalism, as a style of writing, came about in Europe in the late 1800s. It grew out of a movement in literature known as realism, in which authors attempted to write objectively, depicting the outside world as honestly and as truthfully as possible (Lehan 3). Realism dominated European literature from 1848 until 1871, when naturalism started to become more commonplace (Lehan 3). Naturalism did not differ much from realism except in that naturali...

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...nect us to that era. In a contemporary world filled with all sorts of new technology, it is easy to forget the past. Literature, however, serves to keep people in touch with history so that the immediate and lasting legacies of prominent people and their respective cultures may never be lost.

Bibliography

Bender, Bert. The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Campbell, Donna M. Naturalism in American Literature. Department of English, Washington State University, 2013. Web.

Lehan, Richard. Realism and Naturalism. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Print.

Matterson, Stephen. 1820s-1920s Naturalism. Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 2007. Web.

Pizer, Donald. The Theory and Practice of American Literary Naturalism. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. Print.