American Naturalism

Determinism and self-reliance were a few of the characteristics American authors sought to portray in the novels of this literary period, reflecting a more realistic view of the country with the rise of industrialism in the late 19th century. This title, American Naturalism, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Bloom's Period Studies series, features a selection of critical essays analyzing the writers and works that defined this period. In addition to a chronology of important cultural, literary, and politcal events, this text includes an introduction and editor's note written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University.

Contents:

Zola as a romantic writer / Frank Norris 
Reality in America / Lionel Trilling
Notes on the decline of naturalism / Philip Rahv
Naturalism in American literature / Malcolm Cowley 
Late nineteenth-century American naturalism / Donald Pizer 
Panoramic environment and the anonymity of the self / Richard Poirier 
Studs Lonigan and the failure of history in mass society: a study in claustrophobia / Ann Douglas 
Naturalist fiction and political allegory / Harold Kaplan 
American literary naturalism: the French connection / Richard Lehan 
Beyond naturalism? / Michel Fabre 
The naturalist novel and the city: temporary worlds / Philip Fisher 
The revolt against style: Frank Norris / Michael Davitt Bell
Contemporary American literary naturalism / Donald Pizer 
The awakening and the house of mirth: plotting experience and experiencing plot / Barbara Hochman 
Dreiser, London, Crane, and the iron madonna / Donna M. Campbell
Chronology.