现实主义 American Literature of Realism.pptVIP

American Literature of Realism 1865-1918 Historical Background After the Civil War, the U.S. headed toward capitalism Increasing industrialization and mechanization of the country produced extremes of wealth and poverty. The frontier was closing. Historical Background A reexamination of life began The worth of the American dream, the idealized, romantic view of man and his life in the New World began to lose its hold on the people. Beneath the glittering surface of prosperity there lay suffering and unhappiness. Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. Realism Definition As a literary movement realism came in the latter half of the 19th c. as a reaction against “the lie” of romanticism and sentimentalism. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low. With Howells, James, and Mark Twain active on the scene, realism became a major trend in the 1870s and 1880s. Realism Features Verisimilitude (逼真) of detail derived from observation Effort to approach the norm of experience Offer an objective rather than an idealized view of human nature and experience Writers of American Realism Local colorism 乡土文学 A subdivision of Realism, local color writing was marked by dialect, eccentric characters, and sentimentalized sadness or eccentric humor. It exploits the speech, dress, mannerisms, habits of thought, and topography (地貌) peculiar to a certain region, primarily for the portrayal of the life of a geographical setting. It lacked the basic seriousness of true realism Writers of American Realism 3 champions of Realism (1) William Dean Howells (1837-1920) (2) Mark Twain (1835-1910) (3) Henry James (1843-1916) Writers of American Realism Naturalism wrote about the helplessness of man, his insignificance in a cold world, and his lack of dignity in face of the crushing forces of environment and heredity. They reported truthfully and objectively, with a passion for scientific accuracy and an overwhelming accum