1. THE RISE OF AMERICAN REALISMOr
THE BRUTAL, GRAPHIC, BLOOD SPURTING, AGONIZING DEATH OF ROMANTICISM

2. WHEN DID REALISM BEGIN?
April 12, 1861 Confederate forces open fire on Union Forces at Fort Sumter in South Carolina
This event, combined with building political tension, was the beginning of the Civil War
This began one of the bloodiest chapters in American history

3. THE CIVIL WAR
The American people held opposing viewpoints on the war
IDEALISM Personified by Walt Whitman
His work in the field hospitals and visiting wounded soldiers gave him a sense of optimism and patriotism

4. THE CIVIL WAR 1861-1865 PESSIMISM Personified by Herman Melville
His visits to the battlefields
exposed the futility and horrors
of war-saw humanity’s basic evil

5. LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA
No true literature of this period was produced
Most of the accounts of the war came from newspaper articles and soldiers accounts

6. LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA
America’s greatest writers either chose not to write (Emerson)
died (Thoreau)

7. LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA
were occupied with other endeavors (Holmes and Bryant)
The younger generation of
writers was abroad
(Howells and James)

8. LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA
Most notable was that the form of literature best able to handle such strong material had not been developed
Photographers such as Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner brought the horrors of war to many people through the images they captured

9. THE RISE OF REALISM
Out of the horrors of the Civil War came a negative reaction to the atrocities of war
People became disillusioned with the exploits of larger than life heroes and happy endings that had been popular during the era of Romanticism
Realists focused more on the common course of ordinary life

10. THE RISE OF REALISM
Subjects were drawn from the slums, factories, and lives of far from idealized characters:
factory workers
corrupt politicians
even prostitutes

11. THE RISE OF REALISM Biology psychology sociology
Realists wanted to portray why ordinary people behave the way they do
They wanted to portray life without filtering it through personal feelings, romanticism, or idealism
Realistic novelists often relied on the emerging sciences of human and animal behavior
Biology psychology
sociology

12. THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN REALISM
Realism had its roots in regionalism
literature that emphasizes a specific geographic setting and makes use of the speech and manners of the people who live in that region 
Although regional novelists were loyal to the speech and manners of the people they wrote about, they tended to be unrealistic about their depiction of the characters or the social environment

13. THE ROOTS OF AMERICAN REALISM
Mark Twain became one of the first regional writers to embrace the aspects of Realism
In Huckleberry Finn, we see the world from Huck’s point of view
Huck attempts to decipher the world around him
Twain uses Huck to explode social conventions and the hypocrisy of “civilized” society

14. REALISM AND NATURALISM
Following the lead of European novelist Emile Zola, authors such as Frank Norris
turned to psychology and sociology as the basis of their characters
These Naturalists attempted to
dissect human behavior with objectivity
They felt that human behavior was determined by forces beyond the individual’s power

15. REALISM AND NATURALISM
They saw human life as a losing battle where the characters have limited choices and motivations and are totally subject to the natural laws of the universe, and like animals, live crudely by instinct, unable to control their own destinies

16. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL
Authors such as Henry James concentrated principally on fine distinctions of character motivation
James often set his novels in Europe, which he considered to be more sinister than America
His characters were eager, young Americans who confronted the complexities of European society, and either defeat or are defeated by them

17. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL
Stephen Crane was also a profound psychologist, but he chose to focus on his character at moments of stress
Crane chose the battlefield, the slums, and even a lifeboat lost at sea as the place to test human behavior under pressure
Crane was also considered an Ironist by juxtaposing human pretensions with the indifference of the universe
This helped pave the way for modern writers such as
Ernest Hemingway and Kurt Vonnegut

18. CHARACTERISTICS OF REALISM
Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail, even at the expense of a well made plot
Character is more important than action or plot
complex ethical choices are often the subject
Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive

19. CHARACTERISTICS OF REALISM
Class is important; generally tend to focus on the insurgent middle class
Events will be plausible and will avoid the sensational
Diction is natural vernacular and the tone may be comic, satiric or matter-of-fact
Objectivity in presentation is critically important