Naturalism and aestheticism are two literary movements/styles that are not so far removed from one another as one might initially think. Naturalism was a reaction to the subjective and imaginative escapism of the romanticists, a school of writing and writers who were influenced by the ideologies of Darwin’s biology and the social and economic determinism of Taine and Marx. Instead of the subjective and imaginative portrayals of the romanticists, naturalists tried to objectively and truthfully portray human beings and their social interactions, much like the objective search for the truth used in scientific method. While Gustave Flaubert is considered an aesthetic, his style is also considered a precursor to naturalism, a style in which the authors sought to portray people and society with the objectivity and truth of scientific inquiry, warts and flaws included:
In technique, their work was marked by an objective, detached method of narration, meticulous accuracy of detail, and scholarly care in the documentation of historical background. Its subjects were drawn from the lower strata of society, and no detail of their sordid unhappy lives was spared. Emphasis was placed on the social environment of the characters and on the totally subordinate relation of the individual human being to it. In the naturalistic novel, there is a pervading sense of the control exerted over the actions and destinies of the characters by impersonal social, economic, and biological forces. Human free will is shown as weak and almost completely ineffectual.
Emile Zola uses the principles and techniques of naturalism to argue in favor of his preferred brand of social reforms, whereas, Flaubert is more of an aesthetic whose literature is designed around the central tenet of aestheticism, l’art pour l’art (art for art’s sake). Flaubert came in between the romanticist and naturalist movements and his works embody a romantic strain through th...