American Realism (1865-1910)

Romanticism vs. Realism

Life as we Imagine it Life as it Really IS

“Realism is nothing more, nothing less, than the truthful treatment of material.”

-William Dean Howells (author)

•Begins in Europe (France)•In U.S., ushered in by Civil War and social change•Realists respond to ½ century of Romanticism, which they saw as tedious, irrelevant, outdated

For Realists, “The redemption of the individual lay within the social world.” (Howells)

Realists saw a need to confront social issues through their writing, art, and

photography.

Social Factors Which Contributed to the Onset of Realism

• Increasing rates of democracy and literacy• Rapid growth in industrialization and urbanization• Expanding population, especially immigrants• Origins of a “middle class”…increasing class

awareness• Renewed faith in scientific discovery & progress– Ex. Growing popularity of the camera……

Real images that showed the Real world…un-romanticized

Literary Characteristics of Realism

A. Character is more important than plot• faced with complex ethical choices• life lacks symmetry and plot, so should fiction• rounded, dynamic, believable characters

B. Importance of class, gender, ethnicity

• Examines the plight of lower, socially deprived classes in America

• Reflects changing face of America

• In America, the novel becomes a staple of the educated middle class

C. Events are Believable

• Focus on the ordinary…yet within the ordinary the extraordinary can happen

• Nothing supernatural or “beyond belief”

• An aversion to Emersonian idealism

D. Diction is natural vernacular

• Extensive use of dialogue and dialect…the way people really talk

• Regional (or “local color”) writers sought to preserve regional ways and customs amidst social change…esp. language and geography

• Walt Whitman’s poetry celebrated the common man and his daily language

E. Change in Author “Voice”

• More reliance on first person narrative-Author often removes himself from the story

• Decrease in allegory and slow-paced narrative; still a strong reliance on symbolism

• Purpose of writing is not merely to entertain, but to instruct as well: Social Purpose

Various Aspects of Realism

• Local Colorists: Mark Twain; Bret Harte

• Social Critics: William Dean Howells; Mark Twain

• Muckrakers: Upton Sinclair; Jacob Riis (photo.)

• New Voices: Paul Laurence Dunbar; Kate Chopin

• Naturalists: Jack London; Stephen Crane; Kate Chopin

Like Romanticism, Realism continues to influence literature and the arts…