Literary Naturalism traces back most directly to
Émile Zola's "The Experimental Novel" (1880), which details Zola's concept of a naturalistic novel, which traces philosophically to
Auguste Comte's
positivism, Naturalism began as a branch of
literary realism, and realism had favored fact, logic, and impersonality over the imaginative, symbolic, and supernatural.
Frank Norris, an American journalist and novelist, whose work was predominantly in the naturalist genre, "placed realism, romanticism, and naturalism in a dialectic, in which realism and romanticism were opposing forces", and naturalism was a mixture of the two. Norris's idea of naturalism differs from Zola's in that "it does not mention materialistic determinism or any other philosophic idea". in the beginning of the 20th century. Apart from Zola and Norris, there are various literary critics who have their own separate views on the matter. As said by
Paul Civello, these critics can be grouped into four broad, and often overlapping, groups: early theorists, history-of-idea critics, European influence critics, and recent theorists. The early theorists saw naturalism thematically and in terms of literary technique. The history-of-idea critics understood it as an expression of the central ideas to an era. The European influence critics viewed it in much the same way as Zola. For example, according to theorist
Kornelije Kvas, naturalism presents "forms of human experience not spoken of before – the physiological aspect of human behavior, sexuality, poverty – as literary topics worthy of being dealt with." Recent theorists have either re-conceptualized naturalism as a narrative form, or denied its existence entirely. This certainly was not the first time Zola's novel had been criticized however. After his novel
Thérèse Raquin (1867) had been sharply criticized for both contents and language, in a foreword for its second edition (1868), in a mixture of pride and defiance, he wrote: "Le groupe d'écrivains naturalistes auquel j'ai l'honneur d'appartenir a assez de courage et d'activité pour produire des oeuvres fortes, portant en elles leur défense", which translates as: "The group of naturalist writers I have the honor to belong to have enough courage and activity to produce strong works, carrying within them their defense." Naturalism was very popular in its time and was known in different literary traditions in
Western Europe. In the
Netherlands, there was Cooplandt,
Couperus,
Frederik van Eeden and
Marcellus Emants. In
Denmark,
Jens Peter Jacobsen. In
Germany, the most important naturalistic writers were
Gerhart Hauptmann,
Arno Holz and
Johannes Schlaf. In Belgium, the most important writers were
Cyriel Buysse and
Stijn Streuvels. In Spain, the most remarkable figure was
Emilia Pardo Bazán; In Brazil, the main writer of the genre was
Aluísio de Azevedo. == American Naturalism ==