Realism

Realism is a literary term which is so widely used as to be more or less meaningless except when used in contradistinction to some other movement, such as Naturalism, Expressionism, Surrealism. The original definition of realism by Sir P. Harvey was "a loosely used term meaning truth to the observed facts of life (especially when they are gloomy)." Realism has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications.

Realism in literature is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Although realism is not limited to any one century or group of writers, it is most often associated with the literary movement in 19th-century France, specifically with the French novelists Flaubert and Balzac. In the drama, realism is most closely associated with Ibsen's social plays. Later writers felt that realism laid too much emphasis on external reality. Many, notably Henry James, turned to a psychological realism that closely examined the complex workings of the mind (stream of consciousness).

The French realist school of the mid-19th cent. stressed "sincerity" as opposed to the "liberty" proclaimed by the Romantics; it insisted on accurate documentation, sociological insight, an accumulation of the details of material fact, an avoidance of poetic diction, idealization, exaggeration, melodrama, etc.; subjects were to be taken from everyday life, preferably from lower-class life. This emphasis clearly reflected the interests of an increasingly positivist and scientific age. French Realism developed into Naturalism, an associated but more scientifically applied and elaborated doctrine, seen by some later critics (notably Marxist critics) as degenerate.

George Eliot introduced realism into England (William Dean Howells 1837-1920 introduced it into the United States). In England, the French realists were imitated consciously and notably by George Augustus Moore (1852-1933) and Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), but the English novel from the time of Defoe had had its own unlabelled strain of realism, and the term is thus applied to English literature in varying senses and contexts, sometimes qualified as "social" or "psychological" realism etc.

Realism in Literature

　　Realism in literature is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Although realism is not limited to any one century or group of writers, it is most often associated with the literary movement in 19th-century France, specifically with the French novelists. Realism has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications. In the drama, realism is most closely associated with social plays.

　　The original definition of realism was 'a loosely used term meaning truth to the observed facts of life (especially when they are gloomy)' (Sir P. Harvey) that would seem to indicate such post-French-realist works, most of which have proletarian or lower-class settings. The French realist school of the mid-19 cent. stressed 'sincerity' as opposed to the 'liberty' proclaimed by the Romantics; it insisted on accurate documentation, sociological insight, an accumulation of the details of material fact, an avoidance of poetic diction, idealization, exaggeration, melodrama, etc.; and the subjects were to be taken from everyday life, preferably from lower-class life. This emphasis clearly reflected the interests of an increasingly positivist and scientific age. [French Realism developed into Naturalism, an associated but more scientifically applied and elaborated doctrine, seem by some later critics (notably Marxist critics) as degenerate.]

　　George Eliot introduced realism into England, and William Dean Howells introduced it into the United States. Later writers felt that realism laid too much emphasis on external reality. Many, notably Henry James, turned to a psychological realism that closely examined the complex workings of the mind.

　　In England, the French realists were imitated consciously and notably by George Edward Moore (1873-1958) and Arnold Bennett 1867-1931), but the English novel from the time of Defoe (18th cent.) had had its own unlabelled strain of realism, and the term is thus applied to English literature in varying senses and contexts, sometimes qualified as 'social' or Psychological' realism etc.