Abstract
STRINDBERG'S SO-CALLED NATURAUSTIC DRAMAS of the late 1880's and early 1890's can only be tenned naturalistic with certain important qualifications. If The Father (1887) is naturalistic, its naturalism is the kind of "grandiose art" of which Strindberg found examples in Emile Zola's play Therese Raquin (1873) and the novel Germinal (1885). By grandiose naturalism Strindberg meant in this context a powerful, elemental art strongly colored by the temperament of the author, an art which does not refrain from an occasional heightening or exaggeration of reality for dramatic effect. Of this type of naturalism both Therese Raquin and The Father contain several examples. One need only recall in Zola's play the drastic scene in which Madame Raquin, rendered hysterical with rage, discovers the crime of the guilty lovers Therese and Laurent, and in Strindberg's violent drama the climactic episode where the Captain throws the burning lamp at his wife Laura, after he has been informed that he has only been a breadwinner and a means for her to conceive the child. Again Miss Julie (1888), Strindberg's most completely naturalistic play, is not in all respects genuinely naturalistic.
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