Realism and Naturalism

Realism

Realism is an attempt to describe

human behavior and surroundings or
to represent figures and objects
exactly as they act or appear in life
(a faithful representation of reality).

a movement that began in the mid-

19th century, in reaction to the highly
subjective approach of romanticism

the novels of Gustave Flaubert
the short stories of Guy de

Maupassant

the plays and short stories of Anton

Chekhov

• George Eliot introduced realism into

English fiction

• Mark Twain and William Dean Howells

were the pioneers of realism in the
United States

• Henry James’s concern with character

motivation and behavior led to the
development of the psychological
novel

• the main tenet of realism:
= writers must set down their

observations impartially and
objectively

• faithful representation of life and

character

• middle-class life and preoccupations

Naturalism

• regard human behavior as controlled by

instinct, emotion, or social and economic
conditions,

• reject free will,
• adopt the biological determinism of Charles

Darwin and the economic determinism of Karl
Marx.

Naturalism, in literature, the theory

that literary composition should be

based on an objective, empirical

presentation of human beings.
Naturalistic writers:

Exponents of Naturalism

First prominently exhibited in the

writings of:

Edmond Louis Antoine de Goncourt
his brother Jules Alfred Huot de

Goncourt

Émile Zola

American exponents of

naturalism:

• Frank Norris
• Sherwood Anderson
• John Dos Passos
• Theodore Dreiser
• James T. Farrell

William Dean Howells
(1837-1920)

• American novelist and critic,

born in Ohio.

• In 1860, he wrote the campaign

biography of Abraham Lincoln.

After Lincoln's election, Howells

was appointed United States

consul in Venice, Italy, in 1861.

• In 1866, he became assistant editor of the

literary magazine The Atlantic Monthly. He

served as editor in chief from 1871 through

1881.

• From 1909 until his death, he was president

of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

William Dean Howells wrote more than

30 novels, among them:

• A Modern Instance (1882), the story

of a failed marriage,

• A Woman's Reason (1883), a study of

Boston society,

• The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), a

study of a self-made businessman
who never loses his integrity.

In the 1880s Howells became concerned

with social issues:

• Annie Kilburn (1888) deals with class

contrasts in a New England town

• A Traveler from Altruria (1894) and

Through the Eye of the Needle (1907)

explored the problems of industrial

America

• A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), a

dramatic novel about the newly rich,

socialism, and labor strife in New York City,

may be Howells's best work of fiction.

The critical works of William Dean Howells

include:

Criticism and Fiction (1891), My Literary

Passions (1895), and Literature and Life

(1902)

Supported a diverse group of authors:
• Introduced American audiences to

Émile Zola,

Benito Pérez Galdós, Henrik Ibsen, and Leo

Tolstoy.

• Encouraged:

Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and

Hamlin Garland.

• Promoted women writers:

Sarah Orne Jewett,

Edith Wharton, and Emily Dickinson.

• Editor and friend to

Henry James and Mark

Twain

.

(Hannibal) Hamlin Garland
(1860-1940)

• Born in West Salem,

Wisconsin. He grew up
working on farms.

• In 1884 he moved to

Boston, Massachusetts,
where he established a
friendship with William
Dean Howells.

• The economics of farming in the Midwest

furnished the central themes of his short

stories

• The grim conditions of American farm life:

Main-Travelled Roads (1890)

Other Main-Travelled Roads (1910).

• In 1894 Garland published Crumbling

Idols, a volume of essays on literature and

art in which he proposed his critical theory

of

veritism

, a socially conscious realism

intended to express unembellished truth.

• Hamlin Garland was involved in

economic reform, and feminist
reform movements.

• An advocate for

Native American rights.

• Autobiographical work:

1917 Son of the Middle Border
1922 Daughter of the Middle Border

Jack London (1876-1916)

• Born John Griffith

London in San
Francisco

• worked at various

odd jobs, and in 1897
and 1898 he
participated in the
Alaska gold rush

Wrote more than 50 books,

experienced enormous

popular success as an author

• The Call of the Wild (1903)
• People of the Abyss (1903),

about the poor in London;

• The Sea Wolf (1904), a novel based on the

author's experiences on a seal hunting

ship;

• Martin Eden (1909), an autobiographical

novel about a writer's life; John Barleycorn

(1913), an autobiographical novel about

London's struggle against alcoholism;

• The Star Rover (1915), a collection of

related stories dealing with reincarnation

Frank Norris

(1870-1902)

• Born in Chicago
• Educated at the University of

California and Harvard University.

• A newspaper correspondent during

the Spanish-American War (1898)
and the Boer War (1899-1902).

• McTeague (1899), the tragedy caused

by greed in the lives of ordinary people;

• The Octopus (1901)
• The Pit (1903)
• Vandover and the Brute (1914)
• A Man's Woman (1900)
• The Responsibilities of the Novelist and

Other Literary Essays (1903).

Theodore Herman Albert

Dreiser (1871-1945)

Born in Indiana, Dreiser
was a reporter for the
Chicago Daily Globe in
1892, traveling
correspondent for the
St. Louis Globe
Democrat and for the
St. Louis Republic from
1893 to 1894.

• Sister Carrie (1900)

• Jenny Gerhardt (1911)

• The Financier (1912)

• The Titan (1914)

• The “Genius” (1915)

• An American Tragedy (1925)

Dreiser believed in representing life

honestly in his fiction, through

detailed descriptions of the urban

settings

His characters are victims of social

and economic forces and of fate

A member of the United States

Communist Party

• Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928)

• Tragic America (1932)

• America Is Worth Saving (1941).

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

• Born in Newark, New

Jersey.

• In 1891, New York

City as a freelance

reporter in the slums

Maggie, a Girl of the

Streets (1893)

The Red Badge of

Courage (1895)

• Crane was a correspondent

during the Greco-Turkish

War (1897) and the

Spanish-American War

(1898)
The Open Boat and Other

Stories (1898)

• befriended by Joseph

Conrad and Henry James

• two volumes of poetry:

The Black Riders and Other

Lines (1895)
War Is Kind and Other

Poems (1899)

• early examples of

experimental free verse

.