Naturalism

Naturalism, aesthetic movement attempting to apply the scientific view of the natural world (particularly that of Darwin) to the arts. According to naturalism, there is nothing real beyond nature; humans are thus prisoners of their environment and heredity. This movement, inspired by Émile Zola's argument for a scientific approach to literature in The Experimental Novel (1880), influenced such writers Guy de Maupassant (France), Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser (U.S.), Henrik Ibsen (Norway), August Strindberg (Sweden), and Maxim Gorki (Russia). The naturalist influence is also evident in the work of French painter Gustave Courbet. More recent naturalists are U.S. playwrights Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.