#17 Realism in American Literature and Main Representatives

In the early 60s of the nineteenth century, romanticism was replaced by a

new literary and artistic phenomenon, realism. The main reason for its
emergence is the loss of illusions due to the Civil War, which
showed the ineffectiveness and inappropriateness of romanticism, which
focused on on everything exotic and idealistic. Among the factors that
contributed to the formation of realism is the publication in 1859 of
On the Origin of Species(by Charles Darwin in 1859. Then there are the
deaths of the romantics of the older generation-Henry David Thoreau in
1862 and Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1864.The literary landscape is beginning
to change with the emergence of a new generation of American writers who
set out to truthfully and authentically reflect the reality around them in their
work, without the allegorical, sentimental, or sensuality of the previous
generation of Romantics.
The brightest and most talented of the new writers were, in particular, Mark
Twain, Henry James and William Dean Howells, among others. The last of
these writers in his work "Criticism and Fiction" (1891) emphasized: "Let
fiction cease to lie about life; ... let it portray men and women as they are,
actuated by the motives and the passions in the measure we all know; ... let it
not put on fine literary airs; let it speak the dialect, the language, that most
Americans know".
A common feature of realist writers was that they had experience working as
journalists in various newspapers, where brevity and informative content are
valued above all else. Also, very often the object of realists' works was the
life of middle-class representatives. If the Romantics were guided by the
philosophical foundations of transcendentalism, the realists were based on
the philosophy of pragmatism of William James, which affirmed free will,
purposeful, conscious behavior, and individual responsibility.
It is worth remembering that there was no single monolithic school of
realism, but a number of literary trends coexisted during the period of
realism.literary trends of realism, which often differed significantly from
each other:
regionalism or "local color" literature, which was represented by Mark
Twain, Sarah Neshaminy, and others.or "local color" literature), which was
represented by Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and
Kate Chopin; and Freeman) and Kate Chopin;
psychological realism - Henry James;
critical Realism - William Dean Howells;
naturalism - Stephen Crane, Upton Sinclair,Jack London.
For example, representatives of regionalism were interested in the habits
and dialects of a particular area of the United States and reflected them in
their own works, which often took the form of a humorous story or a sketch.
Instead, Henry James's psychological realism was characterized by
aestheticism, figurative style of speech, and frequent use of periphrasis. He
experimented with the images of narrators or "centers of consciousness" to
reproduce the play of their imagination. That is why literary critics define
his work as transitional between realism and modernism.
The favorite topics for writers of the Realist era, especially for the
representatives of critical realism, were the most urgent problems of the
time: immigration, small-town patriarchy, shameful hypocrisy, sham social
reforms, prostitution, economic injustice, the family institution, women's
rights, racial discrimination, etc.
In general, all realist writers gravitated toward the careful observation of
details inherent in scientific research, but it was
in naturalism, science became the basis for creativity. Based on the
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, they built plots, revealing the
character of the characters and showing the motives of actions. The
naturalists were often called determinists (because of their belief in the
omnipotence of abstract forces), pessimists (because they because they were
convinced that people are unable to influence their own destinies)
or social Darwinists who extrapolated biological theories Darwin's
biological theories of natural selection to models of social organization. That
is.only those who can best adapt to the conditions and rules of society will
be successful in society. But the characters in the works of naturalists
have always been defeated in this struggle and adaptation, because external
abstract forces are beyond the control of people whose fate is not the result
of their personal choice.
The difference between the above types of realism was also in the
generational plane. The heyday of the realists James and Howells in the
1870s and 1880s, and the formation of the naturalist Crane took place in the
90s of the nineteenth century.
In the era of realism, writers preferred prose. Of course,
poetry was also written, but it was rather conventional or created
as a parody of certain sentimental romantic traditions.
However, the works of two prominent American poets, Walt
Whitman and Emily Dickinson, though dating from the second half of the
nineteenth century, cannot be considered purely realistic. Both of them stood
against the didacticism and formal conventions of mid-century poetry,
whose representatives were called Fireside Poets (e.g., Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier).
In an effort to prove its identity, American literature of the realist era was
undoubtedly influenced by European literature.
literature (H. Ibsen, George Eliot, G. Flaubert, E. Zola, L. Tolstoy).
and culture. But it was not an imitation, rather an adaptation to
American realities. Therefore, readers were particularly interested in
works of local color, and critics saw in them the potential for
the development of the uniqueness of American literature and the creation of
the "great American novel."
It is quite difficult to give a clear definition of the concept of "Realism",
given the variety of works whose authors identified themselves as realists.
American realism is a literary and artistic movement,which developed in the
last third of the nineteenth century and lasted until the beginning of the
twentieth century.the beginning of the twentieth century; it sought to show
real life in order to expose the flaws of society.
It is an interesting fact that novels of the late nineteenth century were first
published in leading middle-class magazines,such as The Atlantic, Harper's,
Century, or Cosmopolitan, mostly in Boston and New York. For two
decades, he was the editor of three of them at different times was William
Dean Howells, who helped to discover writing talent and introduce readers
to the works of Mark Twain, Henry James, and many other realist writers.
Another feature was that the readership of these magazines of these
magazines was 75 percent female. As if that is why a novel had to contain a
love storyline to be successful. With the invention of the linotype printing
press, the circulation of publications increased significantly, whic
contributed to the rapid popularization of writers' work.