- 1860's-1910... I've also seen 1914....
- A reaction against the idealist vision of humanity associated with Romanticism and Transcendentalism
- Attempted to portray the facts of real lives in commonplace situations and settings
- Often involves social criticsm
- "Realism sets itself at work to consider characters and events which are apparently the most oridinary and uninteresting, in order to extract from these full value and true meaning." -- George Parsons Lathrop, 1874
- "Let fiction cease to lie about life; let it portray men and women as they are... let it not put on fine literary airs; let it speak the dialect, the language, that most Americans know" -- William Dean Howells 1889
- Common vernacular, dialects
- Concrete references (money, food, shelter, decor) vs abstract references found in Romanticism
- Limited social relations
- Shared guilt/responsibility among characters
- set in growing cities
- Motivations: survival of the fittest; greed; lust; confusion
Realism can be divided into four categories:
- Realism (as a general concept
- Contains the attributes listed above
- Often focuses on life in the city, usually the lives of middle class characters
- Authors include William Dean Howells, Ambrose Bierce, Rebecca Harding Davis, and authors listed in other categories below
- Psychological realism
- Tries to realistically recreate the processes of the human mind
- Writers were interested in the minutiae of human life (such as the instant decision that affects one forever or the emotional significance of a raised eyebrow).
- Authors include Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (in some works) and others.
- Regionalism
- Attempts to portray daily life in one particular region of the country
- Was sometimes dismissed as quaint "local color" or "slice of life" writing; women writers in particular were considered insignificant for focusing on the local rather than on universal theme.
- Regional writers are now taken more seriously, including women who explored gender boundaries
- Authors include Kate Chopin, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Willa Cather, Mark Twain.
- Naturalism:
- An extreme realism that focuses on the ugliness of people's lives, especially the lives of lower class or under-class people
- Influenced by theories of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, who applied (or arguably misapplied) Darwinian ideas to human society and coined the term "survival of the fittest."
- The concept of determinism is important.
- Determinism refers to the idea that people are controlled by forces outside themselves, such as economics, social class, gender, race, intelligence level, and the subconscious. We don't really have free will and our choices don't matter because these outside forces determine who we are and what we do.
- Pessimistic view of human life
- Authors include Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Frank Norris, and (in some works) Edith Wharton and Henry James
- Precursor to modernism
- Nature doesn't care
- Universe doesn't care
- Vs. Gods providence
- We believe we're in control, but we're not-- futility
- Ironic tone
- No answer--intelligence and education are useless
- Bitterness-- horrors of the world presented
- Nature isn't beautiful or uplifting
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