美国文学简史常耀信版讲义4.ppt

American Naturalism
Background
Influences
1. Darwin’s theory: “natural selection”
--- survival of the fittest in natural selection
2. Spenser’s idea: “social Darwinism”
--- the utilization of Darwin’s ideas to justify petition between men.
3. French Naturalism: Zora
--- an overemphasis on the coarser sides of life
Features
1. environment and heredity
2. scientific accuracy and a lot of details
3. general tone: hopelessness, despair, gloom, ugly side of the society
significance
It prepares the way for the writing of 1920s’“lost generation” and T. S. Eliot.
Realism vs. Naturalism
Specific changes in subject matter and characterization which help in defining Naturalism as different from Realism:
1. The subject matter:
A. The subject matter deals with those raw and unpleasant experiences which reduce characters to “degrading” behavior in their struggle to survive. These characters are mostly from the lower middle or the lower classes - they are poor, uneducated.
B. The milieu is monplace and the unheroic; life is usually the dull round of daily existence. But the naturalist discovers those qualities in such characters usually associated with the heroic or adventurous --- acts of violence and passion leading to desperate moments and violent death. The suggestion is that life on its lowest levels is not so simple as it seems to be.
C. Generally the controlling force is society , the surrounding environment and heredity.
b. The Naturalists attempt to represent the intermingling in life of the controlling forces and individual worth.
---“The primary goal of the late eenth-century American Naturalists was not to demonstrate the overwhelming and oppressive reality of the material forces present in our lives. Their attempt, rather, was to represent the intermingling in life of controlling forces and individual worth. The Naturalists do not dehumanize man.”
major writers
Stephen Crane
Jack London
Norris
Dreiser
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
Stephen Crane, Am