Naturalism - The European Scene

A World In Flux
● “Huge and often disturbing changes to the intellectual, social, political, and physical
landscape of Europe”
● “Spirit of romanticism was being overcome by realism” → possible parallel with the
development of post-modernism after the modernist early 20th century
● “Increasingly materialistic values”
● “Shift from a predominantly rural to an industrial, urban society”
● “Regardless of health hazards, the factories manufacturing goods for the new
consumerism required the energy that coal provided” → realist drama as a response to
gritty conditions of this new industrial-capitalist zeitgeist
● “Ibsen reflected on the human cost and impact of industrial project” → his plays are in
conversation with the hot-button issues of humanity’s imposition on nature through
“ruthless entrepreneurship”
● “Playwrights . . . attempt[ed] to confront their audiences with uncomfortable reality” →
grounding in the gritty reality of illness and death as a basis for naturalism
The Great Naturalist
● “Charles Darwin’s ​Origin of Species​ (1859) had profound implications for the
development of Naturalism in drama” → major text, remember this date
● “Human behavior was not based on humankind’s inherent wickedness or sinfulness . . .
[rather] driven by the primal needs of survival and reproduction” → a removal of grand
ideas of good and evil (rooted in spirituality) makes an easy bridge to the Natural
● In the world of naturalist drama “conduct was affected by the physical conditions for
living, by what might have been inherited in terms of character or disease, and by the
need for survival”
● “All too soon the dark shadow of ‘eugenics’ was to fall across Europe” → reminder of
Naturalism’s place in history, as an influence, not just the influenced
● “The ambition to give dimension to a character, a degree of meaningful determinacy to
behavior and fludity to dramatic action”, as characteristic of the naturalist playwright→
this ‘ambition’ is ain conversation with the aims of Aristotle in ​Poetics​ builds on his
more scientific tradition, rather than the more mystical, ritual histories of drama
The Study of the Mind and the Development of Psychology
● “The brain and the mind were not separate entities . . . the soul was merely a religious
construct” → these “contentious ideas” deeply informed the naturalist eschewing of the
spiritual for a privileging of visceral and environmental factors
● According to Freud “the ‘mind’ was really the brain’s collection of stored experiences
and primal drives” → the view of the mind and body as one animalistic and primal
 creation leads to naturalist grounding in hereditary influence and environment as
determinants
● “We see the influence of the growth of psychology clearly in the work of such dramatists
as Zola, Strindberg, and Chekhov”
● “A scientific investigation of, and an interest in, the workings of the mind became a
characteristic of naturalistic writing”
● “It is no coincidence that it was the characters in Chekhov’s plays that became the
subjects of the psychologically-based approach to acting devised by Stanislavsky” →
important, the naturalist influence at work
The Subjection of Women
● “A shift in role and prospects for women during the nineteenth century” → major aspect
of naturalist plays, see ​Hedda, Julie a​ nd more
● “The ‘new woman’ rebelled against the theological and legal positions that made her the
property of her husband and the intellectual and social inferior of men” → both in the
world, and reflected in realist and naturalist works
● “As the century progressed an increasing proportion of musicians and performers in the
theatre were female” → increased representation thus heightened the realism of the
natural and visceral feminine onstage
● “It was, perhaps, the obsession with respectability engulfing society . . . in the second half
of the nineteenth century that made life for women fo frequently stressful”
● According to this paper “by far the most engaging and memorable characters in
naturalistic drama are female . . . a succession of powerful individuals . . . who totally
dominate the stage” → see Therese, Hedda, Nora, Rebecca West, the three sisters, Nina
● “Contemporary issues fuelled the need for naturalistic presentation of the dilemmas of
real women in real situations if they were to be addressed intelligently”
Nations, Empires, and Revolutions
● “As . . . nations and empires vied for exploitation of colonial wealth and military
pre-eminence, the map of Europe was redrawn, boundaries disputed and areas of land and
old alliances changed hands” → political turmoil of the region hugely informed the
politics, both macrocosmic and persona, of naturalist drama
● “Socialist ideas began to spread across europe” → response to aforementioned
industrialization and rise of capitalism
● “Prompted by naturalist playwrights, [newly republican France] began to address the
many lingering injustices endured by working people” → the influence of theatre at
work!
‘Have You Read Nietzsche?’ → question from Trofimov in ​The Cherry Orchard
● “The writings of the German philosopher might be considered essential reading in
thinking circles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries”
● “Nietzsche focuses on the drama of ancient greece and argues that the Greeks developed
tragedy as a means of avoiding pessimism and celebrating the idea of life as an adventure
and struggle against the odds” → again in conversation with early Plato and Aristotle
readings, good essay material
● “Nietzsche made an important distinction between the “dionysiac” element . . . and the
“apollonian” → this binary also informs the ritual vs. reason contrast touched on in
Poetics
● “A considerable number of dramatists were influenced by Nietzsche’s writing . . . George
Bernard Shaw and the American playwright Eugene O’Neill”