Studies About Zola's Naturalistic Poetics

The naturalistic poetics which was represented by French novelist and critic Zola has produced agreat impact in French literature and guided the writing of a generation of writers, and later it wasspread to the main European countries and exerted a inestimable influence on the literatures of thesecountries.After that,literary naturalism was spread to Japan and China in Asia and maked also anotable impact on their literatures.Evadently,it is significant to study the poetic ideas and regulationsof this poetics.However,because of the influence of ex-Soviet-Union,realism-is-supreme was carriedout in Chiese literary field before the end of "Cultural Revolution" and people regarded naturalism ascontre-realism literary school.The defects of naturalism was exagerated and so naturalism and thenaturalistic method were strangled ,the discusstion about naturalism was strangled too.After the endof Cultural Revolution,naturally people want to reveal naturalism in its true colours.Therefore,peoplestudy naturalism according to the facts and try to estimate it justly.Owing to the historical error,ourstudies on naturalism fall behind those in western countries for several (at least two) generations,andhaven't made much headway up to now.This thesis try to get rid of those prejudices and partialopinons,on one hand;and to assimilate the valuable results of French scholars and other westernscholars,on the other hand;and at last give a new interpretation of literary naturalism.In general,mythesis relies on the method of reception aesthetic,incarnating with the horizon of expectations ofreaders the cultural context in which naturalism came into being and taking the aesthetical gap for thepoints at issue,and finally explaining the reason why naturalism gained so great a success at that timeand interpretating its poetical regulations and aesthetical caracteristics. This thesis is divided into five parts: in the first part,it mainly discusses the historical and culturalcontext in which naturalism emerged,showing that the birth of naturalism was the indirect result ofmodernity,the essential elements of naturalism are cults for reason and science,enthusiasm for socialevolution,i.e.,scienticism.Shortly before the coming out of naturalism,literary romanticism dominatedFrench and western literary field.Romanticism was a literary school which laid stress on theexpression of feelings and its effect on readers.The elementary inclinations of romanticism are to denythe-reason-is-supreme and to oppose the pure imitation for reality.The social and cultural cause for thebirth of romanticism was that many men of letters didn't comprehend materialism and sharp socialconflicts taken by the industrial society,and so they protested them with their literary works. Later thisprotestation was succeeded by realistic criticism.However,the realistical forerunners had not theconciousness of school,and so they didn't procuce a systematic theory of their school.though theworks of Stendhal and Balzac expressed a style different from that of romanticism and they putforward some theoretical conceptions, but they didn't distinguish their style from that ofromanticism.Just within such a context that naturalism emerged.The naturalistic poetics was thedeliberate challenge and couterattack against romanticism,it carried on the trend of pro-reason and therealistic style from the Renaissance and classicism,blended some elements of scientific experimentand became the first literary trend that openly advocates the association of literature and science.Likerealism,naturalism advocated to write the reality,but realism did not emphasize the impersonality, nordid it consult scientific laws or scientific method. The second part of this thesis mainly analyses theshock that was taken by the premier naturalistic novels of Zola to the horizon of expectation ofreaders.In fact it resulted from the aesthetical gap between the expectation and the poetic normes oftexts.It is just the strategy of Zola that the texts should produce the aesthetic gap, stimulate theaesthetic consciousness of readers,improve the readers' attention,and finally make a sensationaleffect.The third part of my thesis interpretates and analyses the principles and important categories ofZola's naturalistic poetics.These are fundmental elements of naturalism.The principles are three:verity,impersonality,scientific method;the categories include le sens du reel,la nature,la verite,letemperament,le roman experimental,etc.Among them the scientific method and the search for truth arethe most important.According the orientation of these principles and categories of Zola, naturalismis a poetics which put stress on knowing (savoir) and mixing (melanger).The fourth part expounds thepoetic practice of Zola in his novels.There often are Scholars who see the "lezarde" between Zola'spoetics and his creative practice.Is there really a lezarde?It cannot be denied,I think.I believe that anywriter's creative writing cannot accord completely with any system of poetical norms.But we can'texagerate this lezarde.If we do so, the former mistake will be repeated: Zola's achievement is due tothe victory of realism and naturalism is trashy poetics.What is the method by which Zola closed thatlezarde?That is as follows:the association of mythical archetype and historical environment,theinterfusion of impersonal discours and ideology,and the interweaving of sciectific priciples andsymbolic images.The last part discusses the influence exerted by naturalism on Chinese modernliterature.Why Chinese modern literatrue which has a long orientally cultural and literary traditionwas influenced by the western naturalism?There were two important causes:at first,Chinese NewCulture Movement had the same goals with naturalism:science and democracy;secondly,men of letterswho had been to foreign countries brought in naturalism.This thesis discusses only two examples:MaoDun and Li Jieren.