par Den Tandt, Christophe
Editeur scientifique Newlin, Keith
Référence Refashioning American Literary Naturalism, The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism, Oxfard: Oxford UP, page (404-23)
Publication Publié, 2011
Partie d'ouvrage collectif
Résumé : This article aims to clarify the stakes of the recent critical revision of naturalism and to determine how durably its shift in methodological practice and thematic focus has affected literary scholarship. There has been no overall return to previous classical orthodoxies. Issues such as gender and race have gained a permanent standing in the critical landscape. Still, studies focusing on more traditional issues-determinism and the literary appropriation of science, most notably-have been published throughout the neo-Marxist/neo-historicist refashioning of the field. Likewise, scholarship has kept developing in ways unrelated to postmodernist theory. The 1981 publication of the restored text of Sister Carrie indicated how classical scholarship still had the capacity to set the terms of the critical debate. Additionally, advances in literary historical research have brought into the circle of critical discussion ever more texts deserving inclusion into the naturalist corpus. These developments further the emergence of what we might call a postclassical definition of naturalism. The latter term is relevant to discussions of naturalism that integrate the critical input of postmodernism without reducing turn-of-the-twentieth-century texts to test cases for theoretical paradigms. Postclassical scholarship, unlike some essays of the 1980s and 1990s, handles naturalism as a genre with its specific history, thematics, and discursive features.
Cette contribution au Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism fait l’état des lieux des approches critiques anglo-américaines contemporaines consacrées au naturalisme littéraire. Les principaux courants abordés sont le néo-marxisme et le néo-historicisme. Ces mouvements, l’article suggère, ont produits des définitions nouvelles du discours naturaliste et de ses enjeux : l’attention ne se porte plus sur les problématiques du déterminisme scientifique mais plutôt sur la contribution du naturalisme à l’instauration de l’économie consumériste et sur sa capacité à construire des rôles genrés.