19th Century Literature: The Rise of Realism

The effects of the Civil War, Industrialization, and movements in the Fine Arts

Where we have been already:

Colonial literature (1620-1800)pragmatic/didactic

Puritanism truth in Bible

Rationalism/Deism Romanticism (1800-1860)

idealized—intuition+imagination Romantic Hero

truth in Nature (God) Romantic Poetry/Fireside Poets

Where we have been already:

American Renaissance (1840-1860)idealized—intuition+experience

Transcendentalism truth in Nature—connected to God

Dark Romantics (Anti-Transcendentalists)/Gothic

New American Poetry (Whitman/Dickinson) (1850-1890)

REALISM

A brief lesson in Art History: Much of what happened in American

Literature was already happening in the Fine Arts.

Painters, sculptors, architects were previously creating Romantic works that spoke of truth in nature and the importance of intuition.

Romantic art

Romantic art

Romantic art

19th Century Literature

Romanticism no longer makes sense when America has to reckon with The Civil War

Furthermore, the move away from an agrarian society towards an Industrialized nation affects all of the arts, including literature.

19th Century Literature: REALISM

Reaction to horrors of war Also, the squalor of the city Realism began in the Arts…

19th Century Literature: REALISM

19th Century Literature: REALISM

Verisimilitude—quality or state appearing to be real or true

Details of everyday life/ordinary/“real” “real” people (common folk—factory

workers) Faithful representation of

environment/manners of everyday life—NO Romantic or idealized filter

Tries to explain WHY people behave as they do

19th Century Literature: REALISM

19th Century Literature: REALISM

Uses emerging sciences: biology, sociology, and psychology

A writing technique & also a subject matter

Documentary-style or history (closer to non-fiction)

Character more important than plot/action

19th Century Literature: REALISM

19th Century Literature: REALISM

19th Century Literature: REALISM

19th Century Literature: REALISM

Subject is often complex, ethical choices character(s) face

Dialect—“real” language (vernacular)

Objective tone Realistic authors:

Mark Twain Henry James

19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

A “branch” of Realism focused on characters, dialect, customs, and other features particular to a specific region

Uses realistic depiction of speech patterns, manners, and behavior BUT less realistic depictions of character and social environment

19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

Traits Setting

emphasis on nature and limitations setting is often remote and treated as a

“character” Character

characters as “types” to represent region

not individuals (often uses stereotypes) dialect and personality traits tie them to

the specific region

19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

Traits Narrator

bridge between rural characters in the story and urban audience/readers

educated observer who is at a sympathetic, yet ironic distance

Often presented as a frame story or frame narrative (story inside another story)

19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

Traits Theme(s)

Celebrate community/Nostalgia for the past/Distrust of change

“intrusion of the outsider”/rural v. city

Regionalist writers: Mark Twain Kate Chopin

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

Uses Realism for a PURPOSE (focused realism)

Technique and belief that human behavior is determined by forces beyond the individual’s power, esp. biology (heredity) & environment

Humans live like “animals”—by instinct: humans are unable to control their own destinies, but are subject to the natural laws of the universe

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

Uses realism as a “technique” to portray details—purpose is to show that man is governed by heredity and environment, so they carefully select which realistic details to show

Dissects human behavior as objectively as possible like biologist dissects a frog

Juxtaposes human pretensions with the indifference of the universe (nature)—IRONY

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

Traits Setting

Often urban or lower class Character

Usually lower class “social Darwinism”—class struggles Attempts at free will are stymied

Plot Clinical, “slice of life” drama “Chronicle of despair” “Novel of degeneration”

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

Traits Theme(s)

Survival; determinism Brute within man Warring, internal passions (man v. self) Struggling against indifferent universe

(man v. nature) Struggle to maintain civility despite

pressures to release “brute” Free will as an illusion

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

Naturalistic writers: Frederick Douglass Stephen Crane Edith Wharton John Steinbeck Jack London Upton Sinclair

IMPRESSIONISM

IMPRESSIONISM

IMPRESSIONISM

Technique borrowed from Art (painting) whereby the writer gives NOT objective reality, but one character’s perceptions of reality

IMPRESSIONISM

IMPRESSIONISM

IMPRESSIONISM

IMPRESSIONISM

19th Century Literature: REALISM

Works for this Unit The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen

Crane Naturalistic novel using

Impressionism Fictional account of Civil War soldier

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Regionalist novel—Picaresque Novel Fictional account of a young rascal in

the slave-holding South

19th Century Literature: REALISM

Works for this Unit Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Naturalistic/Regionalist novel—Frame story

Fictional account of a married man in love with another woman

Other works: The Jungle, The Awakening, Age of Innocence