The disintegration of Naturalism brought it to the same state, for different reasons.
Although Naturalism is a product of the nineteenth century, its spiritual father, in modern history, was Shakespeare. The premise that man does not possess volition, that his destiny is determined by an innate “tragic flaw,” is fundamental in Shakespeare’s work. But, granted this false premise, his approach is metaphysical, not journalistic. His characters are not drawn from “real life,” they are not copies of observed concretes nor statistical averages: they are grand-scale abstractions of the character traits which a determinist would regard as inherent in human nature: ambition, power-lust, jealousy, greed, etc.
Some of the famous Naturalists attempted to maintain Shakespeare’s abstract level, i.e., to present their views of human nature in metaphysical terms (for example, Balzac, Tolstoy). But the majority, following the lead of Émile Zola, rejected metaphysics, as they rejected values, and adopted the method of journalism: the recording of observed concretes.
The contradictions inherent in determinism were obvious in this movement from the start. One does not read fiction except on the implicit premise of volition—i.e., on the premise that some element (some abstraction) of the fiction story is applicable to oneself, that one will learn, discover or contemplate something of value and that this experience will make a difference. If one were to accept the deterministic premise fully and literally—if one were to believe that the characters of a fiction story are as distant and irrelevant to oneself as the unknowable inhabitants of another galaxy and that they cannot affect one’s life in any way whatever, since neither they nor the reader have any power of choice—one would not be able to read beyond the first chapter.
Nor would one be able to write. Psychologically, the whole of the Naturalist movement rode on the premise of volition as on an unidentified, subconscious “stolen concept.” Choosing “society” as the factor that determines man’s fate, most of the Naturalists were social reformers, advocating social changes, claiming that man has no volition, but society, somehow, has. Tolstoy preached resignation and passive obedience to society’s power. In Anna Karenina, the most evil book in serious literature, he attacked man’s desire for happiness and advocated its sacrifice to conformity.
No matter how concrete-bound their theories forced them to be, the writers of the Naturalist school still had to exercise their power of abstraction to a significant extent: in order to reproduce “real-life” characters, they had to select the characteristics they regarded as essential, differentiating them from the non-essential or accidental. Thus they were led to substitute statistics for values as a criterion of selectivity: that which is statistically prevalent among men, they held, is metaphysically significant and representative of man’s nature; that which is rare or exceptional, is not. (See Chapter 7.)
At first, having rejected the element of plot and even of story, the Naturalists concentrated on the element of characterization—and psychological perceptiveness was the chief value that the best of them had to offer. With the growth of the statistical method, however, that value shrank and vanished: characterization was replaced by indiscriminate recording and buried under a catalogue of trivia, such as minute inventories of a character’s apartment, clothing and meals. Naturalism lost the attempted universality of Shakespeare or Tolstoy, descending from metaphysics to photography with a rapidly shrinking lens directed at the range of the immediate moment—until the final remnants of Naturalism became a superficial, meaningless, “unserious” school that had nothing to say about human existence.
There were several reasons why Naturalism outlasted Romanticism, even if not for long. Chief among them is the fact that Naturalism’s standards are much less demanding. A third-rate Naturalist may still have some perceptive observations to offer; a third-rate Romanticist has nothing.
Romanticism demands mastery of the primary element of fiction: the art of storytelling—which requires three cardinal qualities: ingenuity, imagination, a sense of drama. All this (and more) goes into the construction of an original plot integrated to theme and characterization. Naturalism discards these elements and demands nothing but characterization, in as shapeless a narrative, as “uncontrived” (i.e., purposeless) a progression of events (if any) as a given author pleases.
The value of a Romanticist’s work has to be created by its author; he owes no allegiance to men (only to man), only to the metaphysical nature of reality and to his own values. The value of a Naturalist’s work depends on the specific characters, choices and actions of the men he reproduces—and he is judged by the fidelity with which he reproduces them.
The value of a Romanticist’s story lies in what might happen; the value of a Naturalist’s story lies in that it did happen. If the spiritual ancestor or symbol of the Romanticist is the medieval troubadour who roamed the countryside, inspiring men with visions of life’s potential beyond the dreary boundaries of their daily toil—then the symbol of the Naturalist is the back-fence gossip (as one contemporary Naturalist has somewhat boastfully admitted).
Contributing to the (temporary) dominance of Naturalism was the fact that precious stones attract a greater number of seekers of the unearned than do the more commonly available minerals. The essential element of Romanticism, the plot, can be purloined and disguised by recutting, even though it loses fire, brilliance and value with every stroke of a dime-store chisel. The original plots of Romantic literature have been borrowed in countless variations by countless imitators, losing color and meaning with each successive copy.
For example, compare the dramatic structure of The Lady of the Camellias (Camille) by Alexander Dumas fils, which is an unusually good play, to the endless series of dramas about a prostitute caught between her true love and her past, from Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie on down (or, properly speaking, on up) to Hollywood variants. The esthetic parasites of Romanticism helped to run it into the ground, turning its examples of inventiveness into worn-out bromides. This, however, does not detract from the original authors’ achievements; if anything, it underscores them.
Naturalism does not offer such opportunities to imitators. The essential element of Naturalism—the presentation of “a slice of life” at a specific time and place—cannot be borrowed literally. A writer cannot copy the Russian society of 1812 as presented in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He has to employ some thought and effort of his own, at least in the sense of using his own observations to present the people of his own time and place. Thus, paradoxically, on its lower levels Naturalism offers a chance for some minimal originality, which Romanticism does not. In this respect, Naturalism would appeal to some writers seeking the possibility of a literary achievement on a modest scale.