Abstract
 
The Sea Wolf is one of the most representative sea novels written by Jack London. Though Naturalism is generally accepted as the dominating key tone of the novel, its setting, plot, characters all bear Romanticism. This dissertation aims to probe into the romantic elements in The Sea Wolf, and more importantly, to find out the subtle changes these elements have gone through under the dominating naturalistic tendency. With an overview of The Sea Wolf, this dissertation finally reaches its conclusion, that is, in terms of the romantic color, the setting of The Sea Wolf is not radically changed, but the plot and the characters are weakened.

KEYWORDS:Romantic elements; Naturalism; changes

摘  要

《海狼》是杰克•伦敦海洋小说的代表作，尽管自然主义与现实主义被普遍认为是《海狼》的主基调，但作为一部描写海上猎豹历险小说，从其背景渲染、情节架构、人物塑造等诸方面却可以窥见浪漫主义在该作品中的体现。因而本选题旨在研究《海狼》中的浪漫主义元素，并通过剖析浪漫元素在自然主义的影响下在整部作品中所发生的微妙变化。论文最终得出结论，从浪漫主义角度出发，通观整部小说，《海狼》的背景渲染的浪漫色彩变化不大，而情节架构与人物塑造二者的浪漫色彩都被弱化。

关键词:浪漫主义元素；自然主义；强弱变化

1.    Introduction
1.1     Jack London and his representative sea novel The Sea Wolf
Jack London is a journalist, social activist and fiction writer. What’s more, he is considered as one of the greatest American writers and also a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction. Filled with masculine power and dynamic descriptions of people’ life, his works have earned him a place among the handful of genius realistic artists of international reputation at that time.
Jack London has left behind an impressive number of works, which can be classified into three major types, namely, works depicting man in nature, works depicting man in the cities, and essays. The first classification can be further divided into polar genre fictions and sea novels. The Sea Wolf is the most representative one in his sea novels. However, the quality and quantity of The Sea Wolf are both dwarfed in the present field of literary criticism at least, in comparison to The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Love of Life, Martin Eden and the other works. Therefore, it leaves much room for the discussion of this great works.