Dreiser’s Supernatural Naturalism 69
Dreiser’s ‘An American Tragedy,’ for example, but so is heredity
or temperament.” “The naturalistic novelist who perhaps came
nearer than any other American writer of stature to going the
whole way was Theodore Dreiser, and the novel which I think
best exemplifies this statement is his ‘American Tragedy’ . . .
because it is probably the most completely naturalistic of all
American novels.” “ ‘An American Tragedy’ illustrates perfectly
the complete amoralism of the naturalistic philosophy. . . .
Clyde is not responsible, in the last analysis, because he didn’t
make himself. And this, I fear, is the gospel according to
Theodore Dreiser.”
6. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1920.
7. The Financier, p. 90. The particular reference of this passage is
to Eileen Butler at the time Frank Cowperwood began to become
interested in her.
8. The ‘‘Genius," pp. 361, 689,157,198, 690, 688 ff., 292.