Definition:
The term "realism" when used by literary critics denotes two different meanings:
1) In its first meaning "realism" designates a mode, in various eras and literary forms, of representing human life and experience in literature (Abrams 269). In this way, realism designates a work of literature (usually fiction) that hopes to represent the world as we experience it through our senses. As such, realistic literature uses thick descriptions of persons, places, and things, to recreate them in the mind's eye of the reader. This is known as "formal realism."
2) In its second meaning it designates a literary movement that occurred throughout Europe and the United States in the 19th century. Within the American context, the realist period spans from the close of the Civil War (1865) to the beginning of World War I (1914). It is this sense of realism that we will primarily be concerned with.
In The American Novel and Its Tradition (1957), Richard Chase identifies the following characteristics about American realist fiction:
- Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot
- Character is more important than action and plot; complex ethical choices are often the subject.
- Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive; they are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past.
- Class is important; the novel has traditionally served the interests and aspirations of an insurgent middle class. (See Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel)
- Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the sensational, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and romances.
- Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.
- Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important: overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the century progresses.
In the United States, realism responded to a previous generation of writers that were characterized by their romanticism or transcendental ideals. Writers as diverse as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman wrote essays, novels, and poems that sought to locate some greater metaphysical significance beyond the world of the everyday. For Hawthorne the letter "A" was not a simple abbreviation, for Melville a white whale was not merely an aquatic mammal suffering from albinism, and for Whitman an untidy blade of grass did not signal that he needed to mow the lawn. While all of these items would be described using the techniques of "formal realism," they took on a greater significance than was observable to the naked eye.
In stark contrast, American realists turned their attention from the transcendental to everyday events. This is not to say that realism focused its attention on the banal, merely that it distanced itself from the fantastic. American realism addressed a broad spectrum of topics and worked in variety of different modes: regional differences within the United States (known as regionalism or local color), the moral dilemmas of everyday life, the influence of the burgeoning woman's movement, the rapid industrialization of the Eastern seaboard and parts of the Midwest, the vast influx of immigrants to the United States, the precarious nature of African American rights, and America's growing empire overseas.
Major Figures:
Although a diverse movement, realism has traditionally been typified by three authors: William Dean Howells, Henry James, and Mark Twain. Within this categorization, each writer served the role as acting as a short hand for various features of the movement.
William Dean Howells (1837-1920), also known as the "Dean of American Letters," is perhaps most responsible for promoting the realism within the United States. As editor of Atlantic Monthly and later Harper's, Howells was able to not only codify what realism meant (“Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material") and provided a publishing avenue for like-minded author. Howellsian Realism stressed the realism of social relations. Observing the interactions between different members of society (separated by class, education, ethnicity, and politics) served as the central purpose of Howell's fiction, a feat he achieved in such masterful novels as The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and The Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). Because of his dislike of crudeness, Howells became a particular target of Naturalists such as Stephen Crane and Frank Norris who criticized him for upholding the genteel tradition. While he is still widely read as an exemplar of American realism, his critical reputation has never entirely recovered.
In contrast to Howells, Henry James (1843-1916) remains a critical darling of the academy. Henry James, the self-styled "Master," also differs in his development of realism. James's great theme is that of the American abroad, portrayed in novels such as The American (1877), Daisy Miller (1879), and Portrait of a Lady (1881). In these novels, innocent American protagonists encounter a European world much more sophisticated, decadent, and corrupt than they are yet ready to understand. While James does pay attention to social relations, Jamesian realism instead focuses on the psychology of his characters. Where Howells pays attention to external interactions, James instead devotes his attention to the shifting internal states of those figures who occupy his pages. In his later career, James's fiction grew more experimental, his prose more prosaic (in part because he dictated his novels to a stenographer), and he served to bridge the space between realism and modernism.
Compared to the refined prose of Henry James, the works of Samuel Clemens (the real name of Mark Twain) will always seem rough and uncultured. However, this is just as well as Mark Twain (1835-1910) serves as the representative of realism's penchant for humor and local color. In novels such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Puddn'head Wilson (1894) and in books of travel writing such as Roughing It (1872) and Life on the Mississippi (1883), Twain depicted sections of the South and the West that many Americans would never visit in their lifetimes. Regionalism and local color served an important role in American cultural life during this period. It helped to reunite a fractured country after the Civil War and helped to unite a country that was still rapidly expanding. Although Twain's body of work is not limited to local color or even realism (he wrote romances as well), as a purveyor of regionalism he helped provide his readers with a more varied look of the United States.
Opening Up the Canon:
While the invocation of James-Howells-Twain provides a helpful heuristic to aid our understanding of American realism, it does not convey the ethnic, racial, or gender diversity that marked the realist movement. Since the 1970s critics have rediscovered realist authors who were neglected after they ceased publication. Feminist authors such as Kate Chopin (The Awakening) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman ("The Yellow Wallpaper") have been rediscovered and studied extensively. Minority writers such as the first Asian-American author Sui Sin Far (Mrs. Spring Fragrance), the Native American author Zitkala-Sa ("The Trial Path"), and the Jewish-American author Abraham Cahan (The Rise of David Levinksy) have all received renewed attention in recent years. African-American authors such as Charles Chesnutt (The Marrow of Tradition) and Alice Dunbar-Nelson (Violets and Other Tales) have also increased in prominence. Taken collectively these authors offer us an expanded view of not only the realist movement, but also of the United States that their novels and short stories depict.
Compared to the refined prose of Henry James, the works of Samuel Clemens (the real name of Mark Twain) will always seem rough and uncultured. However, this is just as well as Mark Twain (1835-1910) serves as the representative of realism's penchant for humor and local color. In novels such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Puddn'head Wilson (1894) and in books of travel writing such as Roughing It (1872) and Life on the Mississippi (1883), Twain depicted sections of the South and the West that many Americans would never visit in their lifetimes. Regionalism and local color served an important role in American cultural life during this period. It helped to reunite a fractured country after the Civil War and helped to unite a country that was still rapidly expanding. Although Twain's body of work is not limited to local color or even realism (he wrote romances as well), as a purveyor of regionalism he helped provide his readers with a more varied look of the United States.
Opening Up the Canon:
While the invocation of James-Howells-Twain provides a helpful heuristic to aid our understanding of American realism, it does not convey the ethnic, racial, or gender diversity that marked the realist movement. Since the 1970s critics have rediscovered realist authors who were neglected after they ceased publication. Feminist authors such as Kate Chopin (The Awakening) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman ("The Yellow Wallpaper") have been rediscovered and studied extensively. Minority writers such as the first Asian-American author Sui Sin Far (Mrs. Spring Fragrance), the Native American author Zitkala-Sa ("The Trial Path"), and the Jewish-American author Abraham Cahan (The Rise of David Levinksy) have all received renewed attention in recent years. African-American authors such as Charles Chesnutt (The Marrow of Tradition) and Alice Dunbar-Nelson (Violets and Other Tales) have also increased in prominence. Taken collectively these authors offer us an expanded view of not only the realist movement, but also of the United States that their novels and short stories depict.
