Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

1977

Keywords

American fiction, 20th century, Naturalism in literature

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English, General Literature, and Rhetoric

First Advisor

Sheldon N. Grebstein

Second Advisor

Bernard Rosenthal (for Robert Kroetsch)

Third Advisor

Haskell Block

Abstract

A twentieth century literary naturalism does exist, but critics must confront the problem of an “impure” naturalism which does not lend itself to neat theories and formulas. The intent of this dissertation is to examine the permutations of literary naturalism in selected twentieth century American novels; the term “meta-naturalism” has been chosen to denote the various aesthetic and philosophical complexities arising from a literary naturalism which goes beyond recognizable nineteenth century conventions and increasingly confronts the problematical and the irrational.

This study discusses three forms of meta-naturalism in the modern American novel: mythic and archetypal; existential and absurd; humanistic. The purpose of devising such categories is not to fix novels into rigid groups, nor necessarily to devise new definitions for that often difficult term, “naturalism,” but to illustrate the continuing presence of literary naturalism in various permutations. This study intends to illustrate that literary naturalism is not reductive in form and vision, but does deal with human nature on two planes—the physical and the spiritual. Meta-naturalism, a twentieth century naturalism, does not offer us a downward vision of degraded man, but rather a naturalism which reflects a deep belief in man's potential to achieve not only full consciousness of his predicament, which in itself is redemptive, but also to arrive at an affirmation whether it be informed by a mythical expression of possibility of renewal, by an existential awareness, or by an idealistic humanism.

In order to consider what might appear to be a modern turn away from naturalism, but what really is a modern incorporation of naturalistic conventions, this study explores the unrestricted, innovative, imaginative variations literary naturalism plays upon its own recognizable conventions. Such a meta-naturalism concerns human nature, and its variously complex aesthetic expressions dramatize the complexities of matter, but matter which does not exclude spirit. Specifically, this study concerns mythic and archetypal patterns in the fiction of Zola, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Warren, Oates; existential-naturalistic themes in novels by Hemingway, Wright, Algren, and Mailer; idealistic naturalism in works by Bellow and O’Connor. Neither a survey approach, nor a formalistic reading of specific novels, this study presents a thesis that views literary naturalism in twentieth century American novels from a favorable, illuminating perspective—as a developing, complex form.

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