Tecnicatura Superior en Traducción Literaria y Técnica Científica

Práctica Profesionalizante IV: Traducción Técnica y Científica

2020

American Naturalism
Again a term that is used rather broadly to describe a literary movement
that began in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While often
described as related to realism, Naturalism differs significantly. Naturalism
assumes that humans have little or no control over what happens to them. The
are unable to exercise free will to affect their situations and have little control
over what happens. Individuals are at the mercy of external and internal forces
which control their destinies. Naturalistic works tend to see humans as the
products of biological and/or socio-economic determinisim. Like the realists,
naturalists claim to present their subjects objectively with no comment on the
morality or the fairness of what happens to the individual characters.

Major Statements:

Zola, Emile. Le Roman experimental (1880)

Norris, Frank.

Some Major Writers and their Representative Works

Stephen Crane The Red Badge of Courage, Maggie:A Girl of the

Streets, "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", “The Bride Comes to Yellow
Sky"

Frank Norris McTeague, The Octopus

Theodore Dreiser Sister Carrie, An American Tragedy

Jack London The Call Of The Wild; "The Law of Life"

Common Themes and Elements in Naturalism

 Objective presentation of subject; almost like scientific

investigation/esperimentation.
 Rejection of supernatural explanations for situations or events.
 Heavily influenced by the scientific theories of the time, particularly Darwin's.
 Nature seen as essentially ambivalent to man at best, hostile to man at worse.
 Human beings are part of nature and subject to its laws--no spiritual force or
soul separates them from other animals.
 Man see as an animal driven by instinct.
 Man as a product of his environment.

Prof. : Hernán Flammini

 Tecnicatura Superior en Traducción Literaria y Técnica Científica
Práctica Profesionalizante IV: Traducción Técnica y Científica
2020

 Man as a product of his heredity.

 Behavior is determined more by instinct than by reason.
 Determinism/Social Determinism.
 Nihilism.
 Fatatilism.
 Chance, Fate, Destiny.
 Lack of free will.
 Importance of science, biology, sociology, Darwinism.
 Nature as a dominant image contributing heavily to character and themes.

Prof. : Hernán Flammini