REALISM

 

REALISM

 

Ø Emerged in mid -19th century in France.

Ø It began after 1948 Revolution (February Revolution) in the painting which rejected romantics.

Ø It is a broad reaction against idolization, historical representation and imaginary world of romanticism.

Ø Realism is a unique movement in English Literature that looks at real life, real people and real situations.

Ø Victorian Literature was marked with Realism.

Ø It began with Stendhal (aka Marie Henry Boyle) in French literature & Pushkin in Russian literature.

Ø Attempts to represent truthful, accurate, objective, subject matter faithfully without artificiality, avoids artistic conventions, Supernatural elements.

Ø It focused on contemporary rather than past.

Ø Literary realism attempts to represent familiar things as they are.

Ø Realist authors chose to depict every day and banal activities and experiences.

Ø It uses colloquial idioms every day speech, Omniscient Narrator who knows everything.

Ø Ian Watts in "The rise of the Novel (1957)" -argued that the ‘novel's novelty is its formal realism’ with Examples of Defoe, Richardson & Fielding's novels.

Ø In France Edmund Duranty began a journal called ‘Realisme’ in 1856

Ø Many protagonists in realist literature are women.

Ex.  Emma Bavory in Madame Bavory

Anna Karenina in Anna Karenina

Dorothea Casaubon in Middle March

 

George Eliot's - 3 principles of realism are:

1.    Pursuit of Truth: she says falsehood is so easy truth is so difficult.

2.    It must be moralistic

3.    It must be authentic

 

Key terms:

Ø Verisimilitude: true / real appearance, No super naturalism.

19th century -Realism-Represents life as it is.

18th century -Romance - Represent heroic than actuality.

Ø The Quotidian: ordinary / common events of life such as / brushing teeth /eating much.

 

Main Proponents are:

Ø Flaubert and Balzac- in France.

Ø George Eliot & Dickens - in England.

Ø Dostoevsky and Tolstoy - in Russia.

Ø William Dean Howells (Father of American Realism) & Henry James -in America.)

 

Types of Realism:

1.Kitchen Sink Realism:

Ø This term was coined by an art critic David Sylvester.

Ø It is an offshoot (branch) of social realism that focuses on the lives of young working-class British men who spend their free time drinking in pubs.

Ø The setting here is mostly the bars, restaurants, kitchens etc.

Ø It explores taboo subjects such as adultery, pre-marital sex, abortion, and crime.

Ø ‘Room at the Top (1957)' by John Braine is a kitchen sink realist novel about a young man with big ambitions who struggles to realize his dreams.

Ø The other famous Kitchen Sink works are: Look back in Anger, My Flesh, My Blood, A Taste of Honey, Sparrows can’t Sing, Up the Junction, Cathy Come Homes, etc.

2.Magical Realism:

Ø A type of realism that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.

Ø Magical realism portrays the world truthfully and adds magical elements that are not found in reality but are still considered normal in the world.

Ø In simple words, Magical Realism is the combination of realistic fiction with magical moments weaved in it.

Ø ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a novel of magical realism. It is the story of a man who invents a town according to his own perceptions.

Ø Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: a novel that tells the story of Saleem Sinai, a boy who is born at the exact moment of India’s independence and has telepathic powers. The novel blends historical events, such as the Partition of India, the Emergency, and the Bangladesh War, with magical elements, such as a secret conference of children with supernatural abilities, a witch who can change her appearance, and a man who can travel through time

Ø Beloved by Toni Morrison

Ø Other important Magical Realism writers are: Salman Rushdie, Haruki Murakami, Nabarun Bhattacharya, etc.

2. Social Realism:

Ø A type of realism that focuses on the real lives and living conditions of the working class and the poor.

Ø Draws attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structures behind these conditions.

Ø It aims to reveal tensions between an oppressive, hegemonic force and its victims.

Ø ‘Les Misérables (1862)' by Victor Hugo is a social novel about class and politics in France in the early 1800s.

Ø The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

4. Socialist Realism:

Ø A type of realism created by Joseph Stalin and adopted by Communists. Socialist realism glorifies the struggles of the proletariat (working class people). It was started in Russia.

Ø ‘Cement' by Fyodor Gladkov (1925) is a socialist-realist novel about the struggles of reconstructing the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution.

5. Psychological Realism:

Ø It explores the inner thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the characters, often using techniques such as stream of consciousness or unreliable narration

Ø It is a type of realism that is character-driven, focusing on what motivates them to make certain decisions and why.

Ø Psychological realism sometimes uses characters to express commentary on social or political issues.

Ø ‘Crime and Punishment (1866)' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a psychological realist novel about a man who plans to kill a man and take his money to get out or poverty-but feels immense guilt after doing this.

Ø Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

 6.Naturalism:

Ø Naturalism is an extreme form of realism influenced by

Ø Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Ø Naturalism was founded by Emile Zola.

Ø It explores the belief that science can explain all social and environmental phenomena.

Ø 'A Rose for Emily (1930)' by William Faulkner is a short story about a recluse with a mental illness whose fate is already determined, is an example of naturalism.

Proponents:

Ø Daniel Defoe, Henry Fieldings and Samuel Richardson, as realists, because they wrote about issues related to the middle class.

Ø Joseph Addison and Richard Steele also depicted life and society in its purest and truest form in their essays.

 

George Eliot

Ø She translated David Strauss’ controversial work "The life of Jesus" (1846), and Ludwig Feuerbach’s "The Essence of Christianity (1854)

Ø Adam Bede (1859)

Ø Silas Marner (1861).

Ø Danial Deronda (1874-76)

Ø Middle March: A study of Provincial life (8 parts- 1871-1872)- considered as the most famous work of literary realism

Ø Mill on the Floss (1860)

 

Charles Dickens

Ø Great expectations(1838)

Ø Bleak House

Ø The life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

 

Daniel Defoe

Ø Robinson Crusoe,

Ø Moll Flanders

 

George Gissing

Ø ‘New Grub Street’ (1891)

Ø influenced by Zola.

 

Balzac:

Ø Le Comedie Humanie (The Human Comedy)

Ø It is a series of novels & short stories over 80 works.

Master Pieces:

Ø Cousin Bette (1846)

Ø Father Goriot–a classical study of French society. (A story of Eugene De Rastignac, poor law student and Goriot, an old man)

Ø He produced an account of French society than all the historians

 

Gustave Flaubert

Ø Madame Bovary (1856) - a bout a bored House wife who has affairs.

Ø Sentimental Education (1869) - This Novel is about young man's love to an old woman.

 

Arnold Benette:

Ø "Clay hanger Trilogy” (1910-18),

Ø Clay hanger

Ø Hilda Le sways

Ø These Twain

Ø The Roll call

Ø The Old Wives tale (1908)

 

Leo Tolstoy :

Ø War and Peace (1969)

Ø The Death Ivan Ilyich ( )

Ø Anna Karenina

Ø Dostoevsky:

Ø Crime and Punishment

Ø Notes from Underground (1864)

 

Anton Chekov:

Ø famous for his realist short stories.

Ø Ex. Gusev (1890)-short story about poor Gusev, who fell ill on a ship Journey, died and buried at sea.

Ø The lady with the Dog

Ø The Cherry Orchard. (It is the last play by him in 1903)

 

William Dean Howells:

Ø Father of American Realism

Ø He advocated Verisimilitude (true/ real appearance No supernatural beings)

Ø The first American to bring realism to literature.

Ø The Rice of Laphan (1888)  Crumbling Idols (1894) – Verisimilitude

Ø Criticism & Fiction (1891) - he became famous with this.

Ø “Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material”-William Dean Howells.

 

Mark Twain

Ø Real name is Samuel longhorns Clemens

Ø Adventures of Huckleberry Finnn.

 

Henry James:

Ø (Brother of William James)

Ø Says, “Novel is personal a direct impression of life,” in his essay The Art of fiction (1884), which influenced Ezra pound and TS Eliot.

Novels:

Ø The American (1877)

Ø The Europeans (1878)

Ø Daisy Miller (1879)

Ø The portrait of Lady (1889)

Ø The Ambassadors (1903)

Ø The Golden Bowl (1904)

 

“The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million, a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will.”  

― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady