Naturalism（1880s-1920s）
I. Historical Backgroundbrisk是什么意思
● Industrialism
• Industrialism produced financial giants as well as an industrial proletariat.
• Slums appeared in great numbers and the city poor lived a life of incurity, suffering, and violence.
• Self-reliance disappeared in the fast development of economy.
● Darwinism (Origin of Species)
the struggle for existence (purpo) survival of the fittest (principle) natural lection (process)
● Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer)
• 少儿培训学校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 cour of events to economic forces.
● Emile Zola’s theory:
• The purpo 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 impuls dictate human behavior. All of their actions are controlled.
• The univer 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 spou and the Darwinian idea of the survival of the fittest become natural concerns of naturalist fiction and drama.
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● 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 class, with animal desire, some physically strong but weak-willed figures. There were also some healthy and lofty persons, but their ending were mirable.
• The viewpoint from which the writers understood problems was amoral, or non-moral. They stresd men had no free will, their lives were controlled by heredity and environment.
• Their material was infinite.
III. Major Naturalists
● Stephen Crane 斯蒂芬·克瑞恩 (1881-1900)
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets 《街头女郎玛吉》:the first naturalistic novel in America
The Red Badge of Courage 《红色英勇勋章》
● 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》
● 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》disappear
● Theodore Dreir 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》
The Financier《金融家》 American Tragedy《美国悲剧》
● 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 Dreir.
Stephen Crane 斯蒂芬condom什么意思·克瑞恩 (1881-1900)
I introduction
凡妮莎 帕拉迪丝• Novelist， poet
• pioneer in the naturalistic tradition
showhi• 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 《红色英勇勋章》
● Poems ：The Black Riders 《黑衣骑士》
● Short stories
• “The Open Boat” 一叶扁舟
• “The Blue Hotel” 蓝色旅馆
• “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”新娘来到黄天镇
III. The Open Boat 一叶扁舟（First published in 1897jsy）
• swiftyIt was bad 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
英语听力网● Cosmic irony is the belief that the univer is so large and man is so small that the univer is indifferent to the plight of man.
● Three specific examples of cosmic irony:
• the power of the ocean against the insignificance of the boat
