Naturalism

Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de, 1852-1921Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 252K words
Chapters: 26

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Le Naturalisme by condesa de Emilia Pardo BazánAuthor: Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de, 1852-1921,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Nov 21, 2012

Editor's review

This is Pardo Bazán's critical essay Le Naturalisme, written in French and issued as a public-domain e-book by Project Gutenberg. The author was a major nineteenth-century Spanish novelist and critic; here she discusses the claims, methods, and controversies of literary naturalism, touching on the novel's observation of reality, its determinist tendencies, and the relationship between morality and aesthetics. For readers studying European realism and naturalism, this text offers a reception perspective from the Spanish-speaking literary world and can be read alongside the arguments of Zola and others. The French original is not long and works well as an introductory text for reading literary criticism. The e-book has no notes, so readers need some French reading ability and a background in literary history to fully grasp the argument and its polemical context.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying nineteenth-century European realism and naturalism
Learners with some French who want to practice reading literary criticism
Readers interested in the history of Spanish literary criticism and Pardo Bazán's thought
Students who need a short critical text for classroom discussion or essays

Not a good fit for

Beginners whose French is not yet fluent and who need sentence-by-sentence translation
General readers who only want novels and stories and have no interest in literary theory
Readers expecting a systematic textbook treatment of naturalism as a whole

Reading tips

Learn Zola's basic arguments for naturalism first, then read this essay to grasp the questions the author is answering.
List the author's core arguments and examples as you read, distinguishing what she endorses from what she criticizes.
Read alongside Pardo Bazán's novels to observe the relationship between her theory and her fiction.
For classroom use, select passages for close reading and discuss the relations between literature and reality, morality and science.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a novel or a theoretical essay?

It is a work of literary criticism and theory discussing the claims and controversies of naturalism, not a narrative work of fiction. Approach it as you would a critical essay.

Why did a Spanish writer write in French?

Pardo Bazán wrote this essay in French, related to French being the common language of European literary criticism at the time and to the naturalism debate unfolding mainly in French-speaking circles. The specific background can be explored further in works of literary history.

Do I need to read Zola first?

Not strictly, but it helps to know Zola's basic views on naturalism, since this essay engages with that debate. With that background, the target of the argument and the author's position become clearer.

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About the author

Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de, 1852-1921 Author

Emilia Pardo Bazán (1852–1921) was a Spanish writer of noble birth. Her work has received relatively limited attention in the Chinese-speaking world, and publicly available material on her remains insufficient, yet her writing holds an important place in Spanish literary history. Her novels are often set in the Galician countryside of northwestern Spain, with a realistic touch that attends to social customs, family ethics and character psychology. Her major works include Los pazos de Ulloa, La madre naturaleza, La Tribuna and Morriña. She also wrote short stories and essays on love, marriage and women's circumstances, marked by detailed narrative and keen observation. Nineteen of her works are held in this collection, commonly classified under inspirational growth, suggesting that her writing also offers readable reflections on growth and life themes.