Realism and Naturalism in European and Spanish Literature
Realism and Naturalism
Realism and Romanticism
European and American realist literature evolved from Romanticism by eliminating or reducing its characteristic features. In countries where the realist novel developed earlier, such as England, France, or Russia, the promoters of this new wave were established Romantic writers. This is the case, for example, with the Russian narrator Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) or with the French novelists Stendhal (1783-1842) and Balzac (1799-1850), pioneers of realism in their respective literatures, all of whom belong to the Romantic generation. In other countries, such as Spain, the transition from Romanticism to full Realism was slower and was not fully established until the last third of the nineteenth century, specifically after the Revolution of 1868, with the dethronement of Isabel II, when the Spanish realist novel flourished.
Distinguishing Features of Realist Literature from Romantic Literature:
- Limited subjectivism: The author is no longer presented as the center of the universe but as an objective observer of life and situations from the outside.
- Avoidance of sentimental excesses: Feelings do not disappear from literature but are expressed with restraint and subjected to analysis (examining their psychological, social, etc., roots).
- Reduced imagination: Rejecting the fantastic, literature claims to give the impression of reality, showing credible facts and avoiding the supernatural, otherworldly, and so on.
- Focus on the contemporary: Authors are concerned about their surrounding environment and seek to reflect it faithfully (writing contemporary novels). Although the historical novel does not disappear, it is characterized by greater rigor in reconstructing the past (recent rather than distant), as it seeks to explain the country’s current situation (this is, for example, the approach of Galdós in his celebrated National Episodes).
The Rise of the Realist Novel and Other Genres
The realistic novel became the genre par excellence, the appropriate instrument to portray the world in all its variety. To a lesser extent, there was also the development of realistic drama (notably by the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen), which did not bear valuable fruit in Spain. The so-called high comedy, with representatives like Ventura de la Vega and Manuel Tamayo y Baus (whose work A New Drama is the most notable of the period), and the dramas of José de Echegaray (Nobel Prize in 1904) have stood the test of time.
Lyric poetry took a backseat, although it still grew in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, the best poets maintained a Romantic approach or sought to overcome Romanticism’s unrealistic aspects (as in the case of Symbolism). As for the Spanish poets who adopted a realistic style (the most famous being Ramón de Campoamor and Gaspar Núñez de Arce), they often fell into the prosaic and vulgar.
Naturalism
Naturalism was a movement that tried to take the principles of the realist novel to their logical conclusion. The main driver of Naturalism was the French novelist Emile Zola (1840-1902), who discussed its theoretical basis in the essay The Experimental Novel (1880). Naturalism is not merely a literary trend; it is a way of understanding human beings and a valid method for analyzing their behavior.
Main Features of Naturalism:
- Determinism: Everything in the universe, including human nature and behavior, can be explained by the laws of nature. Humans are not free, as their actions are ultimately determined by their biological heritage and the pressures of their social environment.
- The experimental method: Like a scientist conducting experiments to confirm their theories, the novelist must experiment with their characters, placing them in different situations and explaining their reactions to the combined influence of biological inheritance and surrounding circumstances.
- Socialist principles: Since the laws of heredity cannot be fought, there is at least the opportunity to denounce the injustice of social organization, which prevents equality in living conditions.
- Preference for sordid environments and extreme characters: Patients, psychopaths, alcoholics, criminals, etc., are beings who obey their primary drives and are unable to alter their fate.
Zola himself developed an extensive career as a novelist based on these principles. Among his most famous works are Nana and Germinal, which describes the life and protests of miners. Among his disciples, Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) stands out, the author of numerous short stories and novels such as A Life or Bel-Ami.
Realism in Spain
One of the characteristics of Spanish literature throughout history is its penchant for realism at the expense of imagination and fantasy. In Spain, there was a strong tradition of the realist novel in the Golden Age (Cervantes, picaresque novel, etc.), as well as a remarkable crop of costumbrismo during the Romantic period (Larra, Mesonero Romanos, etc.). However, the development of the realist novel itself was somewhat late in Spain and was not completed until after the Revolution of 1868, which allowed for greater rights and freedoms.
Foreign influence, especially from France and Russia, was important for the development of the Spanish realist novel. We can identify four stages in the development of Spanish Realism:
1. Pre-Realism (1850-1868):
A transitional phase between Romanticism and Realism: abundant folkloric elements and romantic sentimentality, dominated by conservative thinking. Fernán Caballero and Pedro Antonio de Alarcón belong to this stage.
2. Thesis Novels (1868-1881):
Although the novels of this period overcome the picturesque customs, they still fail to accurately represent reality, as they are often used as instruments of propaganda for a particular way of understanding society, either in a conservative or progressive direction. The main shortcoming of these works is the schematic presentation of the characters, which tend to be strongly positive or strongly negative, without the complexity, ambiguity, and contradictions that exist in real life.
Among the novels with a conservative ideological thesis, defending traditional religious and political views, some novels by Alarcón and most of the works of José María Pereda stand out. The most notable novels with a progressive and liberal thesis are those written by Benito Pérez Galdós. Another important author who emerged during this period is Juan Valera (1824-1905), but his works do not follow the pattern of thesis novels but instead focus on the psychological analysis of individuals.
3. Influence of Naturalism (1881-1890):
In these years, Spanish writers became acquainted with Zola’s doctrine and took positions on it. Progressive writers accepted the influence of Naturalism. This was the case with Galdós, who published his best novels during this stage (Fortunata and Jacinta, 1887; Miau, 1888, etc.). Leopoldo Alas “Clarín“, author of what is probably the most successful Spanish novel of the period, La Regenta (1885), and Pardo Bazán herself, wrote her most significant works then: La Tribuna (1883), Los Pazos de Ulloa (1886), etc.
Another novelist who showed an affinity with some aspects of realism is Armando Palacio Valdés (1853-1938), a prolific but quite irregular author. Among his works, we can mention Marta y María (1883) or La espuma (1891), the closest of his works to naturalistic approaches (determinism, proletarian setting, social criticism, etc.).
Finally, extending beyond this period, we must highlight the trace of realism in the regionalist novels of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1866-1928), set in different social environments of Valencia: La barraca (1898), Cañas y barro (1902), etc. This writer, hugely popular in his time, is chronologically situated in the Generation of 98, but his novelistic technique is closer to the schemes of nineteenth-century Realism.
Overall, it should be noted that although the influence of Naturalism was important in terms of narrative technique, character treatment, and choice of topics, Spanish naturalist novelists, especially Pardo Bazán, maintained an ideological aversion to some central elements of the French naturalist doctrine, including its strong social and biological determinism.
4. Spiritual Realism (since 1890):
In the last years of the nineteenth century, a trend towards overcoming the naturalist scheme emerged. Not only was determinism rejected, but there was now a search, through a gradual deepening of the psychology and spirit of the characters, to reconcile the opposition between materialism and idealism.
The influence of Russian novelists, especially Tolstoy, was important during this period. Russian novels began to be echoed in Spain from the mid-1880s (mainly through indirect translations via French), and Emilia Pardo Bazán published an important essay on this subject in those years: Revolution and Russian Novel (1887).
In particular, the works of Galdós from this decade (such as Nazareno, 1895, or Misericordia, 1897) feature characters who are placed above social conventions, driven by a generous spirit. The novels of Emilia Pardo Bazán from these years, starting with Una cristiana (1890), have similar characteristics.