《美国文学》课件二十.ppt

Lecture Nineteen American Naturalistic Literature ;Reviewing Local Colorism and Mark Twain ;Reviewing Local Colorism and Mark Twain ;Naturalism and American naturalistic literature; As a literary movement, naturalism was initiated in France, led by émile Zola (1840-1902) (usually called the father of naturalistic literature), who pointed out that a writer of a novel should be like a scientist in the laboratory, and should record the specific responses of the characters in a given background of heredity and environment. He held that naturalistic literature should stress the objective portrayal. ; According to the naturalistic writers, human beings live in a cold, indifferent world, in which they are helpless and insignificant, and are passive victims of natural forces and social environment, which they have no means of manipulating; life is a struggle for survival. The whole pictures in the naturalistic works are somber and dark, and the general tone is one of hopelessness and even despair.;The theoretical sources for the naturalistic literature: Charles Darwin (1809-1882) --“the survival of the fittest” ( The Origin of Species, 1859); Herbert Spenser (1820-1903, British philosopher) --Social Darwinism ;The major American naturalistic writers: 1)Stephen Crane (1871-1900, aged 28): a pioneer writer in the naturalistic tradition; (one of the two precursors of Imagist poetry; the other being Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886); 2) Frank Norris (1870-1902, aged 32); 3)Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945): in his hands American naturalism is said to have come of age ;The major American naturalistic works: 1) Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (Stephen Crane, 1893): the first American naturalistic novel，a naked representation of slum life; 2) The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane, 1895): the actualities of war; one of the greatest war novels (Crane, the father of the war novel in modern American literature);; 3) Mcteague (Frank Norris, 1899): considered “the first