Realism & Naturalism Notes



Realism & Naturalism Notes

Ms. Burdette

American Literature (Rev. 4/07)

All notes are taken from Adventures in American Literature edited by Hodgins and Silverman. Please cite Hodgins and Silverman for both quotations AND facts. Page numbers are taken from the brown Adventures in American Literature books (Heritage Edition Revised).

Notes 10-1-08

Realism:

*Def. p. 950; information pages 292, 296-300, 378-383

• “The attempt in literature and art to represent life as it really is, without

sentimentalizing or idealizing it. Realistic writing often depicts the everyday life and speech of ordinary people” (Hodgins and Silverman 950)

• opposite of Romanticism

[Romanticism sentimentalizes and idealizes; emotion, rose-colored glasses]

• late 1800’s (post-Civil War) (290-296)

• local color and regionalism are part of realism (296)

• “Less emphasis on the imagination and more on observed fact” (296)

• influence of science

• “a powerful impulse to mirror the unmitigated realities of life” – Henry James (qtd. in Hodgins & Silverman 296)

• “Nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material” according to William Dean Howells (296)

• accurate observation (296)

• shift from…

▪ human potentialities ( human actualities

▪ ideas ( facts

▪ personal vision ( observed social behavior

• Realism: “the depiction of life as most people live and know it”; portrays ordinary life precisely (378)

• “slice of life” (379)

• “…realism, a literary and intellectual movement that has often been contrasted with Romanticism, led poets and novelists not to imagine life as it could be, but to examine life as it was actually lived and to record what they saw around them as honestly as they could” (378)

Realism & Local Color

• local-color movement: important in the transition from Romanticism to Realism

o “close attention to dialect, customs, and character types of a particular region” (296)

o Realism in its “objective observation of social facts” (296)

o (still Romantic in sentimental treatment of human emotion) (296-297)

o Vernacular style: “based on the patterns and rhythms of language as Americans actually spoke it” (299-300)

o Examples of local color writers: Bret Harte, Kate Chopin, Mark Twain (297-300)

o Examples of writers using vernacular: Mary Wilkins Freeman (“The Revolt of ‘Mother’”), Hurston (“Sweat”), Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

▪ Vernacular language (both); vernacular style, perspective, humor, characters (Twain)

|Example of a realist author we’ve studied: |

|Mary Wilkins Freeman |

Naturalism:

• Writers using objectivity, scientific investigation (382-3)

• Influenced by ideas of science, evolution, Darwin (late 1800s) (382-3)

• “survival of the fittest” (Darwinism)

• determinism—heredity & environment (nature & nurture) determine one’s fate

o forces beyond one’s control determine what happens

o (free will is viewed mainly as just an illusion)

o Characters are often crushed by outside forces beyond their control

o “the naturalistic writer sees human beings as creatures that are acted upon by nature, the result of the forces of heredity and environment” (383)

o “All of us are more or less pawns. We’re moved about like chessmen by circumstances over which we have no control” –Theodore Dreiser (383)

• “An extreme form of realism. Naturalistic writers usually depict the sordid side of life and show characters who are severely, if not hopelessly, limited by their environment or heredity” (Adventures in American Literature 948)

• Naturalist authors: London, Dreiser, Stephen Crane

|Examples of a naturalist author we’ve studied: |

|Jack London |

Romanticism & Transcendentalism, Realism & Naturalism

-----------------------

Realism

Romanticism

Guide: Emotion &

intuition

Traits/values:

Nature, justice,

self-reliance,

nonconformity,

oversoul

Writers: London,

Crane

Influence/guide: science, reason, fact, logic

Portrays “life as it really is”

Traits/values: accurate observation, slice of life

Writers: Freeman, Chopin, Twain

Guide: emotion/intuition

Portrays: life as we wish it were

-or- dark side of the human spirit

(two types of Romanticism)

Traits/values: emotion, intuition;

connection to nature;

may sentimentalize and idealize;

supernatural and mysterious

Writers: Hawthorne, Poe

Transcendentalism

Influence:

evolution, Darwin

Traits/values:

Darwinism

determinism

Writers: London,

Crane

Naturalism

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