It was only in the twentieth century and particularly in the 20's that American Literature assumed a distinctive identity, finding its place among the other great literatures of the world.
The main characteristic of twentieth century American Literature is its diversity: never before had so many schools and movements co-existed in a given time. Despite this diversity, however, it is possible to distinguish in the Modern Period three major literary trends: Realism, Naturalism and Psychological Fiction.
Realism, as discussed in the previous chapter, started with authors like Howells and James but continued well into the twentieth century.
Naturalism is a late development of Realism. In its original form it was an attempt to apply to Literature the same methods of the physical and social sciences. This movement was initiated by the French author Emile Zola, who laid down its theoretical basis and wrote some of the most significant naturalist works. Naturalist literature tends to see man exclusively as biological creatures and its main purpose is to turn literature into a document of society. Because of its documentary naature, Naturalism often supresses poetic elements by adopting a style which is flat, objective and lacking in imagery. Naturalist literature also tends to be concerned with the least pleasant aspects of life, focusing most of the time the brutal, the sordid, the cruel and the degraded. In politics, Naturalist literature is sometimes, but not always, socialist and radical.
Psychological literature can be regarded as reaction to Naturalism. It focuses itself on the analysis of moral sentiments and the conflict between right and wrong in the personalities of the characters.
It would be inadequate to classify the authors of the Modern Period as belonging solely to any of these three tendencies because, in most authors, the characteristics of the three movements fuse and overlap. For this reason, the authors will be considered individually rather than grouped according to literary tendencies as done in the previous chapters.
For didatic purposes, we are going to consider modern prose, theatre and poetry separately.
By Marisis Aranha Camargo
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