Naturalism, literary movement associated with realism, flourished in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. The naturalist writers were not limited, as the realists, to portray reality as closely as possible, but adopted a scientistic vision to address its subject matter. Émile Zola, the principal author of naturalistic, appealed to the experimental method proposed by scientist Claude Bernard and the laws of inheritance to the composition of some of his works. In the description of the social environment in which the plot develops naturalistic novels, the writers were influenced by Auguste Comte, who applied the positive method of natural sciences to study social studies. The authors enrolled into this aesthetic tendency, in most cases, adopted a critical stance towards society and its institutions.
The Rougon-Mac-quart and Therese Raquin, Zola, Renata and Germinie Mauperin Lacerteux, the Goncourt, in addition to Marta, the story of a girl, Huymans.
Among the most prominent naturalist writers may be mentioned, and Emile Zola, the brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, in Joris-Karl Huysmans, Octave Mirbeau, Benito Pérez Galdós, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Francesco DeSanctis, Gerhard Hauptmann, Eugenio Cambaceres, Carlos Reyles, Eduardo Acevedo Díaz and José Maria Eça de Queiroz.