TOP 10 AUTHORS OF LITERARY NATURALISM - LITERATURE - 2025

The authors of literary naturalism expanded in their styles, descriptions and interests to reflect the most disadvantaged classes and their development under the oppressive environment of the time.

Literary naturalism emerged around the end of the 19th century in Europe along with literary realism. Both expressed their opposition and rejection of the Romantic literature of the time that had been brewing since the end of the 18th century.

However, although naturalism and realism focused their gaze on the reality of society, naturalism extended its gaze further.

Main authors of literary naturalism

Naturalistic authors tried to expose human behavior through their narratives as a description of the social environment, and thus discover the impulses that guided human behavior.

1- Émile Zola - France

Émile Zola was a French novelist who was born in Paris in 1840, and is known for being the pioneer of literary naturalism.

Zola theorized and promoted the movement with his particular detailed study of social complaints.

He wrote several novels which he titled Los Rougon Macquart, where he delved into the differentiation between social classes, making a notorious demarcation between their opulence and their miseries.

2- Anton Chekhov - Russia

Anton Pávlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote several works such as The Three Sisters (1901), The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vania (1897), etc.

Chekhovian writing used what he called "indirect action" to reiterate the characteristics of the subjects that were related to each other.

The dramatic tone prevailed in his works as well as in his stories, delving into the spiritual failure of some characters who were immersed within a disintegrated feudal society.

3- Nikolai Gogol - Russia

Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) was a promoter of Russian realism, his literary works accentuate the characteristics of various individuals lacking in freedom who depended on the social conditions that surrounded them.

The use of humor, the grotesque and the freshness of his style catapulted him to literary fame. The Inspector General was a satire that he devoted to human stupidity within the social elites of the Russian bureaucracy.

4- Thomas Hardy - England

Thomas Hardy (1840-1828), English poet and novelist, is appreciated by many for being a promoter of pessimistic naturalism.

His classic and naturalistic prose gave off some control over his characters within a Victorian society.

In his novel Far from the Madding Crowd, he was not so interested in human will, but in creating a disturbing and severe universe, which would strip the characters of their Christian values, and where everyone would unite under this cloak of tragic indifference.

5- Theodore Dreiser - United States

Photograph by Carl Van Vechten

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (1871-195) was an American journalist and novelist.

Dreiser wrote several works before The Financier (1912), one of his most famous works, based on a businessman seeking to rise and conquer all the luxuries of a successful position.

However, naturalism in this case is associated with realism, dealing with issues such as life, success and degradation.

6- Eugenio Cambaceres - Argentina

He was born in Buenos Aires in 1843 and died in Paris in 1888. He was the first to introduce literary naturalism in Argentina with his novel Poupourri (1881).

10- Horacio Quiroga - Uruguay

Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937) was a Uruguayan poet and short story writer, who often portrayed in his stories a naturalistic tendency under the constant omnipresent gaze of death.

The crime of the other, Tales of love, madness and death, and Tales of the jungle, are just some of his incredible works.

References

1. Bloom, Harold. (2004). American Naturalism. Philadelphia. Chelsea House.
2. Campbell, Donna. (2016). Naturalism in American Literature.
3. Civello, Paul. (1994). American Literary Naturalism and its twentieth-century transformations. Athens, University of Georgia Press.
4. Howard, June. (1985). Form and History in American Literary Naturalism. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press.
5. Kaplan, Amy. (1988) The social construction of American Realism. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
6. Lehan, Richard Daniel. (2005). Realism and Naturalism: The novel in an age of transition. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.