Realism and Naturalism in 19th Century European Literature
19th Century European Literature: Realism and Naturalism
European literature of the second half of the nineteenth century focuses on reality and its problems. This character warrants taking into account the influence on artistic creation of contemporary society’s stops and changes as produced. Throughout the nineteenth century, the middle class is thriving thanks to the application of scientific advances to the industry in what is called the industrial revolution. The triumph of the machine quickly enriches the bourgeoisie, causing the abandonment of liberal ideas, once achieved politically. The industrial revolution transformed Western society: the nobility loses importance, cradled between the “aristocracy of money,” and there is a new class, the industrial proletariat, unprotected by the power of the bourgeoisie and living in misery. Near-realistic literature, and especially naturalistic literature, reflects this social imbalance by presenting the negative aspects of industrialized Europe. In the realm of thought, the positivism of Auguste Comte succeeds at this time, a philosophical school that reduces the goal of human knowledge to those facts that can be captured by the senses and subject to verification by experience. In practice, Positivism is the assessment of the empirical natural sciences (Physics, Biology, Chemistry) to the detriment of theological and metaphysical concerns that had dominated European thought until now. The man of the time relies on the almost limitless power of science to answer the big questions of life, which come true with the theory of Charles Darwin on the evolution of the species, with the Austrian Mendel who exposes the laws of inheritance. The Naturalism, a trend that appears in the later nineteenth century, takes advantage of new scientific ideas and applies them in society. Writers consider their works as a patient should be treated under the new experimental methods. The realistic movement emerged in France with Stendhal. According to this author, the novel must objectively reflect what happens in the surrounding reality and submit to the consideration of the reader. After Stendhal, Balzac and Flaubert definitively establish the realistic art, which will extend outside of France to become the dominant literary form. From this desire to move the reality as closely as possible, derive the main features of realism: description of the real world, the tendency to omniscience, the thoroughness, the desire for objectivity.
Pharmacist Homais is the character who best represents the faith in knowledge and progress that characterized France throughout the XIX century. It highlights his scientific spirit and enterprising anticlericalism, but he will undergo an evolution throughout the novel and will become a proud man, interested and hungry for power. The mother of Charles, the merchant L’heureux, an accomplice in the ruin of the Bovary, Dr. Canivet, Felicite, Binet, Tuvache, or Mrs. Lefranlois are some of the secondary characters who complete the provincial customs box drawn by the masterful hand of Gustave Flaubert.