Literary Movements: Naturalism, Avant-Garde, and Anti-Victorianism
Fantastic Novel
Fantastic Novel: Carroll picked up the stories he told to a girl in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. In both, boundless imagination is mixed with all kinds of puns and parodies.
Naturalist Theater
Naturalist Theater: Naturalistic drama emerged when the naturalist novel was in decline. Some playwrights tried to delve into the psychology and circumstances of the characters to explain their most notable behaviors. The most prominent were Ibsen and Strindberg, precursors of the theater of our century.
Ibsen and Strindberg
Ibsen and Strindberg: Ibsen’s favorite topic is the individual’s right to full realization. His theater develops in-depth conflicts in the minds of the characters. In A Doll’s House, a woman ends up leaving her husband and children because she feels treated like a doll. In An Enemy of the People, the protagonist is regarded as an opponent of the corrupt society, driven by material interests.
Strindberg’s theater is polarized along two axes: the rebellion against institutions and the projection of his inner universe. His most famous work is Miss Julie, which explores the clash of love between a servant and a young woman from a wealthy family who ends up committing suicide.
The Avant-Garde Theater
Alfred Jarry
The Avant-Garde Theater: Alfred Jarry: Ubu Roi is a farce that leaves no stone unturned in its ridicule. It destroys classical theater by mocking its heroes, environments, and messages. But this grotesque charade is also a cry of rebellion against society and life. For this reason, Jarry must be seen as a precursor of Surrealism and other movements.
Anti-Victorian Reaction
Anti-Victorian Reaction: The moderate realism of the era of Queen Victoria is moving in two directions:
- Aestheticism, pursuing art for art’s sake and provocation in the line of the French Symbolist poets.
- Adventure in faraway and exotic places, like the sea and the forest.
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde: He turned the cult of beauty into his life rules. In his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist remains eternally young while his portrait is altered at the pace of his corruption. When he tries to destroy that image with a knife, he stabs himself. His comedies are full of intrigue and coincidences, in a light tone. In The Importance of Being Earnest, two friends, who change their identities to woo some ladies, see their lies turn into truths.
Adventure Novel
Stevenson, Kipling and Conrad
Adventure Novel: Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, which narrates the adventures of a boy who disputes buried treasure on a remote island with pirates. The plot mixes reality and fantasy, in fluent prose. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a terrifying parable about the duality of man, embodied in the same character.
In Kipling, adventure is at the service of moral values: order, solidarity, respect, etc. Almost all his novels are set in India. The Jungle Book is a collection of stories where a boy named Mowgli is raised among animals and eventually becomes king of the jungle.
Conrad uses adventure as an attractive package of ideas. His characters journey to find themselves. In Lord Jim, he presents a young sailor who tries to atone for having abandoned passengers to their fate. Heart of Darkness is the story of a journey up the Congo River into the heart of the jungle. Nostromo is a story of intrigue, corruption, and ambition in a Latin American republic.