Tekst- og litteraturhistorie i de engelsksprogede lande Session Four: American Naturalism

Agenda Writing America American Naturalism Steven Crane Øvelsesopgave

Writing America Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron" Jack London, "The Law of Life”

Writing America Nationalism: USA vs Europe Regionalism: city vs country Realism and Naturalism: individual vs society, man vs nature, against Romanticism

Forms of Realism ”the truthful treatment of material” (Howells)

Naturalism Darwinism: Nature is a struggle in which the fittest survives Social Darwinism: Society is competitive Zola: ”The Experimental Novel”

Émile Zola, ”The Experimental Novel” In short, we must operate with characters, pasions, human and social data as the chemist and the physicist work on inert bodies, as the physiologist works on living bodies. Determinism governs everything. It is scientific investigation; it is experimental reasoning that combats one by one the hypotheses of the idealists and will replace novels of pure imagination by novels of observations and experiment

American Naturalism A number of American writers adopted aspects of this pessimistic form of realism, this so-called naturalistic view of humankind, though each writer incorporated such naturalism into his or her work in individual ways, to different degrees, and combined with other perspectives. (The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. C, ”Introduction”)

Øvelsesopgave Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat" (1897) and American Naturalism Speaking of Naturalism, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Sixth Edition, Vol. C, states that, “A number of American writers adopted aspects of this pessimistic form of realism, this so-called naturalistic view of humankind, though each writer incorporated such naturalism into his or her work in individual ways, to different degrees, and combined with other perspectives.” (9) Analyse Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat" as an example of American naturalism.

American Naturalism: Steven Crane How does Crane adopt the ”naturalistic view of humankind”? With which ”other perspectives” does Crane combine Naturalism? How? Setting, characters, plot, imagery, point of view