1. IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
REALISM
IN AMERICAN LITERATURE
( )

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

4. 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.

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

6. 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.

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

8. 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

9. Henry James
Psychological realism
Portrayal of the middle classes

10. 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.”

11. 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

12. 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

13. Sources The Northon Anthology of American Literature, 7th Edition
response-to-romanticism.html
Photographs & Pictures