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1、Realism and Naturalism in Art and Literature文化艺术中的现实主义和自然主义中文系 谢琳琳 000114156Before comparing these two cultural schools, we had better ascertain their definitions.Realism,inartandliterature, is an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they
2、 act or appear in life.Naturalism, the term usually used in literature, refers to the theory that literary composition should be based on an objective, empirical presentation of human beings.The two terms are often used interchangeably, as they share so many similarities:Anti-romanticismIn art, real
3、ism is a recurrent theme that becomes a coherent movement after 1850; and even then it struggles against the overwhelming popularity of romanticism. Impressionism can be seen as a development that grew out of realism, but in its turn still had to battle the more popular romanticism. In the scope of
4、literature, realism also marks a radical break with romanticism. Ingeneral,the main tenet of realism is that writers must not select facts in accord with preconceived aesthetic or ethical ideals but must set down their observations impartially and objectively. Naturalism, a logical extension of real
5、ism, proceeds from an analysis of reality in terms of natural forces, e.g., heredity, environment, and physical drives. Its representative writer, mile Zola, undeniably infused French fiction with a refreshing vigor, giving it a tough, powerful edge far removed from the vaporings of high romanticism
6、. Without altogether banishing romanticism, have realism and naturalism had considerable success.Main scopeTheir most important influences have been on literature, especially lengthy novels.Novelist Honor de Balzac is generally hailed as the grandfather of literary realism in the long series of nove
7、ls and stories he titled La Comdie humaine (The Human Comedy). Like such a television series, his works also incorporated a device for maintaining his audience: the continual reappearance of certain characters from one work to the next-now as protagonists, now as secondary figures. The idea is an ol
8、d one, going back classic bodies of work such as the Homeric epics and the Medieval Arthurian romances; but it had a different effect in Balzacs work: readers could recognize a slightly altered version of the world they themselves inhabited as they moved from story to story. Like Balzac, mile Zola c
9、reated a series of novels with linked characters and settings (Les Rougon-Macquart: Histoire naturelle et sociale dune famille sous le second Empire-The Rougon-Macquart: Natural and Social History of a Family During the Second Empire) which stretched to twenty novels. He tried to create a portrait o
10、f France in the 1880s to parallel the portrait Balzac had made of his own times in La Comdie humaine. Initial countryIt is perhaps unsurprising that their origins can be both traced to France. Since the 18th century the French have traditionally viewed themselves as rationalists, and this prevailing
11、 attitude in intellectual circles meant that romanticism led an uneasy existence in France even when allied with the major revolutionary movements of 1789 and 1830.Inart,althoughaclearly defined realist school has never evolved, a realist approach has been manifested in different ways at various tim
12、es. Frequently used to describe scenes of humble life, the term “realist” implies a criticism of social conditions. Thus, some of the work of the French artists Gustave Courbet (for example, The Stonebreakers, 1850), Honor Daumier, and Jean Franois Millet has been described as social realism. Realis
13、tliteratureis defined particularly as the fiction produced in Europe and the United States from about 1840 until the 1890s. This form of realism began in France in the novels of Gustave Flaubert and the short stories of Guy de Maupassant.Naturalism was first prominently exhibited in the writings of
14、19th-century French authors, especially Edmond Louis Antoine de Goncourt, his brother Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt, and mile Zola. MaterialArtists of the realist school would like to paint familiar scenes and events as they actually looked. Typically it involved some sort of sociopolitical or moral
15、 message, in the depiction of ugly or commonplace subjects.Realistic and naturalistic writers often attempted systematically to render a portrait of aspects of his time from the lowest thief or prostitute to the highest aristocrat or political leader, avoiding larger, more dramatic issues.Naturalism
16、, a new and harsher realism, can be distinguished by the following aspects: Extent of Anti-romanticismAlthough we can easily perceive the objective, matter-of fact portrait of all aspects of France in Balzacs works, their plots are filled with sensational conspiracies and crimes and wildly improbabl
17、e coincidences. To some extent, Balzacs works are still essentially romantic creations with a realistic veneer. But if we read Zolas fictionGerminalwe find that Zola was not a meticulous craftsman of beautiful prose. At times it seems as if he is writing with a meat ax. Zola also took frankness abou
18、t sexual functions much further than the early Realists had dared; and it is this, combined with a pervasive pessimism about humanity, which chiefly characterizes the naturalist novel. ScopesRealism and naturalism are not really comparable in scope. The former is a cultural movement in art, music an
19、d literature, while the latter is just a literary school.待添加的隐藏文字内容3 Differences in the Scope of Literature1 Reality in the Essence of LifeRealism places emphasis on reveal the essence of life on the basis of their objective observations.The reality that naturalism shows, although examining dispassi
20、onately various phenomena in life and drawing indisputable conclusions, does not focus the essence of life. That is because naturalistic writers persued an analysis of reality in terms of natural forces, e.g., heredity, environment, physical drives, which determines their inability to reveal the fun
21、damental sense of life.2 Typical CharactersRealists tended to downplay plot in favor of character. In order to mold their typical character, they have to generalize and process the material they observed. Scientific novel, on the contrary, would be created by placing characters with known inherited
22、characteristics into a carefully defined environment and observing the resulting behavior. Naturalistic writers tend to create their principal characters as representative types rather than striking individuals. Individuals are selected to illustrate aspects of society.3 Criteria to Drudge LifeAltho
23、ugh realism requires its writers to set down their observations impartially and objectively, this does not mean that writers should not select facts in accord with their aesthetic or ethical criticism. In contrast, realists must use these criterions so as to reveal the essence of life.Naturalists, e
24、spousing a deterministic philosophy, place special stress on the importance of heredity and environment in determining character. This scientific criterion denies the critical function of society to shape a persons character or thoughts; thus, it is far away from the fundamental sense of life. InfluenceRealistliteratureis long lasting. Even today, there are many writers working in accord with its tenet. While naturalism is quite transient, declining sharply in the 20th century.
