The term Naturalism was used at first as a synonym for Realism and later took the special connotation that designates a different literary trend, where determinism and materialism, influenced by experimental science, lead to a new conception of the human being. Naturalists try to modify the laws of inheritance in their fight against an unjust social organization, which makes equal opportunities for each individual impossible. 

This conviction led some of the naturalist writers to adopt a militant attitude in the politics of their time. Throughout the novels of this genre parade morons, alcoholics, psychopaths, and beings who obey their primary instincts without remedy. Naturalistic writers push the documentation methods put into practice by realist writers to their ultimate consequences, reflecting both material and moral misery often with a subversive purpose. In Spanish literature, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Galdós, and Blasco Ibáñez stand out as realist writers.

Naturalism

Emilia Pardo Bazán writes La tribuna, set agains the background of civil unrest, to discuss the position of women in Spanish society.

Emilia Pardo Bazán writes Los pazos de Ulloa, a diptych with mother nature.

Vicente Blasco Ibañez writes Arroz y tartana, a novel that recollects the life and customs of the city of Valencia in the late seventeenth century, where appearances and false pretenses abound.

Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch premieres Los amantes de Teruel,  a play of medieval environment that deals with the issue of the imposibility of love due to family prejudices.

Emilia Pardo Bazán writes La prueba, novel in which the author evolves towards a more spiritualist tendency.

Vincent van Gogh paints Los cipreses, a spiritual expresion of nature.

Émile Zola writes The Experimental Novel (1880), wich details his concept of a naturalistic novel.

Jack London sells his book The Call of Wild to the Sturday Evening Post.

William Faulkner writes the novel  A Rose for Emily, a story about a woman who killed her lover, considered an example of a narrative within the literary naturalism movement.

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