1. 19th Century Literature: The Rise of Realism
The effects of the Civil War, Industrialization, and movements in the Fine Arts

2. Where we have been already:
Colonial literature ( ) pragmatic/didactic
Puritanism
truth in Bible
Rationalism/Deism
Romanticism ( ) idealized—intuition+imagination
Romantic Hero
truth in Nature (God)
Romantic Poetry/Fireside Poets

3. Where we have been already:
American Renaissance ( ) idealized—intuition+experience
Transcendentalism
truth in Nature—connected to God
Dark Romantics
(Anti-Transcendentalists)/Gothic
New American Poetry (Whitman/Dickinson) ( )

4. REALISM A brief lesson in Art History:
Much of what happened in American Literature was already happening in the Fine Arts.
Painters, sculptors, architects were previously creating Romantic works that spoke of truth in nature and the importance of intuition.

5. Romantic art

6. Romantic art

7. Romantic art

8. 19th Century Literature
Romanticism no longer makes sense when America has to reckon with The Civil War
Furthermore, the move away from an agrarian society towards an Industrialized nation affects all of the arts, including literature.

9. 19th Century Literature: REALISM
Reaction to horrors of war
Also, the squalor of the city
Realism began in the Arts…

10. 19th Century Literature: REALISM

11. 19th Century Literature: REALISM
Verisimilitude—quality or state appearing to be real or true
Details of everyday life/ordinary/“real”
“real” people (common folk—factory workers)
Faithful representation of environment/manners of everyday life—NO Romantic or idealized filter
Tries to explain WHY people behave as they do

12. 19th Century Literature: REALISM

13. 19th Century Literature: REALISM
Uses emerging sciences: biology, sociology, and psychology
A writing technique & also a subject matter
Documentary-style or history (closer to non-fiction)
Character more important than plot/action

14. 19th Century Literature: REALISM

15. 19th Century Literature: REALISM

16. 19th Century Literature: REALISM

17. 19th Century Literature: REALISM
Subject is often complex, ethical choices character(s) face
Dialect—“real” language (vernacular)
Objective tone
Realistic authors:
Mark Twain
Henry James

18. 19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

19. 19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)
A “branch” of Realism focused on characters, dialect, customs, and other features particular to a specific region
Uses realistic depiction of speech patterns, manners, and behavior BUT less realistic depictions of character and social environment

20. 19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)
Traits
Setting
emphasis on nature and limitations
setting is often remote and treated as a “character”
Character
characters as “types” to represent region
not individuals (often uses stereotypes)
dialect and personality traits tie them to the specific region

21. 19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)
Traits
Narrator
bridge between rural characters in the story and urban audience/readers
educated observer who is at a sympathetic, yet ironic distance
Often presented as a frame story or frame narrative (story inside another story)

22. 19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)

23. 19th Century Literature: REGIONALISM (Local Color)
Traits
Theme(s)
Celebrate community/Nostalgia for the past/Distrust of change
“intrusion of the outsider”/rural v. city
Regionalist writers:
Mark Twain
Kate Chopin

24. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

25. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM
Uses Realism for a PURPOSE (focused realism)
Technique and belief that human behavior is determined by forces beyond the individual’s power, esp. biology (heredity) & environment
Humans live like “animals”—by instinct: humans are unable to control their own destinies, but are subject to the natural laws of the universe

26. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM
Uses realism as a “technique” to portray details—purpose is to show that man is governed by heredity and environment, so they carefully select which realistic details to show
Dissects human behavior as objectively as possible like biologist dissects a frog
Juxtaposes human pretensions with the indifference of the universe (nature)—IRONY

27. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

28. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM
Traits
Setting
Often urban or lower class
Character
Usually lower class
“social Darwinism”—class struggles
Attempts at free will are stymied
Plot
Clinical, “slice of life” drama
“Chronicle of despair”
“Novel of degeneration”

29. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM
Traits
Theme(s)
Survival; determinism
Brute within man
Warring, internal passions (man v. self)
Struggling against indifferent universe (man v. nature)
Struggle to maintain civility despite pressures to release “brute”
Free will as an illusion

30. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM

31. 19th Century Literature: NATURALISM
Naturalistic writers:
Frederick Douglass
Stephen Crane
Edith Wharton
John Steinbeck
Jack London
Upton Sinclair

32. IMPRESSIONISM

33. IMPRESSIONISM

34. IMPRESSIONISM
Technique borrowed from Art (painting) whereby the writer gives NOT objective reality, but one character’s perceptions of reality

35. IMPRESSIONISM

36. IMPRESSIONISM

37. IMPRESSIONISM

38. IMPRESSIONISM

39. 19th Century Literature: REALISM
Works for this Unit
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Naturalistic novel using Impressionism
Fictional account of Civil War soldier
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Regionalist novel—Picaresque Novel
Fictional account of a young rascal in the slave-holding South

40. 19th Century Literature: REALISM
Works for this Unit
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Naturalistic/Regionalist novel—Frame story
Fictional account of a married man in love with another woman
Other works: The Jungle, The Awakening, Age of Innocence