IN AMERICAN LITERATURE REALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE (1865 - 1914)

Romanticism ≠ REALISTIC Optimism and Opportunity Topics: Good vs. Evil Idealisation of love and nature Common man as hero Intense emotions Formal language ≠ REALISTIC

Realism is... …. a faithful representation of reality Realist writers tried to portray life as it really was: real characters with real lives and real problems.

CHANGES IN THE USA AFTER 1865 Civil War (1860-1865) Railroad Immigration Industrialisation and urbanisation ⇨ Social Changes

began to write real stories with real characters. Writers such as W. D. Howells Rebecca Harding Davis Mark Twain Henry James began to write real stories with real characters.

Characterisctics Verisimilitude Importance of the character Events are plausible Language is natural

TOPICS E Experiences of real people A Also: Regional writing “Local colorists” World of women Native American writers African American writers N Nonfiction topics: different issues

Henry James Psychological realism Portrayal of the middle classes

Mark Twain Represented life in a realistic manner “Most of the adventures in this book really happened. One or two were my own experiences. The others were experiences of boys in my school. Huck Finn really lived.”

Mark Twain Represented life in a realistic manner Reflected the speech of real people Humorous and descriptive style The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Naturalism Writers wrote about human life as it was shaped and determined Characters are usually lower-class people Scientific explanation One representative of Naturalism in the USA is Stephen Crane

Sources The Northon Anthology of American Literature, 7th Edition http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm http://www.luc.edu/faculty/cschei1/teach/rrn2.html http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-literary-realism-movement-a- response-to-romanticism.html Photographs & Pictures https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images