西北师范大学美国文学通史课件 Chapter 8 Colonial Period.pptVIP

Chapter 8 The Age of Realism  Howells and James I. The Age of Realism (1865-1910) 1. Background A. With the American Civil War (1861-1865), the industrialized Hamiltonian North fought the agrarian Jeffersonian South, the factory defeated the farm, and the USA headed toward capitalism. B. Commercialization, industrialization, mechanization, urbanization C. the frontier was closing and a reevaluation of life began D. disillusionment and frustration were widely felt. “A Golden” turned out to be a Gilded one. E. The Age of Realism had arrived. I. The Age of Realism (1865-1910) 2. The Definition of Literary Realism A. As a literary movement, realism came in the latter half of the 19th century as a reaction against “the lie” of Romanticism and sentimentalism. B. It expressed the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, and for the familiar and the low. William Dean Howells: he must write what he observed and knew Henry James: Life should be the main object of the novel. Mark Twain: writers should keep in their mind the soul, the life, and the speech of the people. C. In matters of style, there was contrast between the genteel and graceful prose on the one hand, and the vernacular diction, rough and ready frontier humor on the other. D. The American authors lumped together as “realists” seem to have some features in common: a. “verisimilitude of detail derived from observation” b. an objective rather than an idealized view of nature and experience E. William Dean Howells, Henry James and Mark Twain as the representatives The Definition of Literary Realism Broadly defined as the faithful representation of reality or verisimilitude, realism is a literary technique practiced by many schools of writing. Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of middle-class life. A reaction against romanticism, an interest in scientific method, the systematizing of the