- What is naturalism?
- Historical context of naturalism
- Representatives of naturalism
- Naturalism and realism
- Naturalism in philosophy
We explain what naturalism is in literature and philosophy, its historical context and representatives. Also, differences with realism.
What is naturalism?
Naturalism is a doctrine artistic, mainly literary, which aspired to reproduce the reality of the society human with the highest degree of objectivity and detail, both in its most sublime and praiseworthy aspects, as well as in the most vulgar and despicable. Somehow naturalism proposed a literature documentary, which can be understood as the maximum grade of the school of the realism.
Naturalism arose in France at the end of the 19th century and from there it spread throughout Europe, becoming the evolution of the prevailing realism, and opposing together with it the idealism romantic who came from Germany. It soon became a popular trend among realist authors, as well as the novel psychological.
The artists of naturalism suspended all kinds of judgment moral with respect to the represented reality, like a scientist when studying animals, and they tried to approach the sectors of society that had been left out by realism. That is why orality, everyday language and the use of the omniscient narrator predominate in his works.
Philosophically, naturalism was heir to determinism, which assumed that the behavior of the human being was predefined, subjected to different internal or external factors, such as her passions, her social environment and economical, and its genetics. That is, it denied free will. This perspective implied, in most novels of this style, a pessimistic vision of society, expressed however in a totally impartial and amoral way.
Historical context of naturalism
The deterministic view of the human being was very popular at the end of the 19th century, as a consequence of the appearance of the evolutionary theory and the darwinism, as well as the positivism of Auguste Comte (1798-1857). These doctrines provided secular and scientific explanations both to the origin of the human being, as well as to the functioning of their societies and history.
Thus, realism made use of the philosophy and to the theories in vogue to strengthen their vision of the world, inherited from the Illustration French and rationalism, contrary to the German idealism of the Romanticism, whose proposal focused more on the emotions and subjectivities of the individual, and had a strong Christian influence. The result of this was the emergence of naturalism, understood as an extreme evolution of realism.
Representatives of naturalism
The main author of naturalism was the Frenchman Émile Zola (1840-1902), who presented its theoretical foundations in the preface to his novel Thérèse Rasquin , and then more openly in his essay The experimental roman ("The experimental novel") of 1880. But there were many other recognized authors who partially or frontally cultivated this literary style, among which the following stand out:
- Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), French short story writer and novelist.
- Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), prominent French novelist, author of Madame bovary .
- Antón Chekhov (1860-1904), the greatest Russian short story writer and father of the modern story, also author of plays.
- Máximo Gorki (1868-1936), revolutionary Russian novelist and politician, founder of the socialist realism literary movement.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), one of the greatest Russian novelists and world literature, his work is vast and complex and is embedded in both naturalism and psychological realism.
- Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), poet and novelist from Great Britain, considered a cultivator and surpasser of naturalism in his country.
- Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928), Spanish writer, journalist and politician, of international renown and left-wing militant.
- Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920), Spanish novelist, playwright, chronicler and politician, considered one of the leading representatives of 19th century Spanish realism.
Naturalism and realism
The realism as naturalism had in common that they proposed for the art an objective vision of society, opposed to the values of romanticism. However, there were significant differences between one and the other.
In general, realism expressed the moral values of the bourgeoisie of the time, and his vision tended to extol the "good" aspects of society and a certain pedagogical intention. The ugly, the vulgar, the violent of the human being were denounced by the realistic novel as evils of society.
Instead, naturalism was an amoral proposition, which did not distinguish between the ugly and the beautiful, since it understood the humanity as something subject to biological and social laws beyond their control. Thus, where the realistic view could be sobering or moralistic, the naturalistic view was pessimistic and indifferent.
Naturalism in philosophy
In the field of philosophy, the term naturalism refers to a perspective of the world that assumes it, in its entirety, as something natural. That is, all the events that occur in the universe and the living beings that populate it are the fruit of natural laws themselves and, therefore, all the nature of the universe is knowable (understandable, describable) through the natural Sciences.
It is a school of thought related to materialism, but far more far-reaching in perspective. It had its heyday between the 1930s and 1940s, mostly among American philosophers such as John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, and Sidney Hook.