Unit 3: The Realists 1860s 1900

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Unit 3 The Realists (1860s- 1900)

• Mark Twain, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Stephen
  Crane, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson, Henry
  James, Kate Chopin

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Romantics Review

• Believed observable world concealed higher
  truths
• Man-made city is site of corruption, moral
  ambiguity, and death and nature site of renewal,
  rebirth, etc.
• Valued feeling and intuition over reason
• Felt experience valued over theory
• Poetry thought to be highest form of expression
• Traditionalist- Themes and forms all essentially
  European

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Historical Context- Late 19th Cent.

• 1860s Unprecedented horror of civil war deeply
  scars American psyche
• 1869- Transcontinental RR finished
• America becomes much more urbanized, yet with
  little improvement for common people
• Idea of Darwinism fundamentally shakes peoples
  idea of humanitys relationship to nature
• 1870s- Collapse of Reconstruction
• Age of the Robber Barons
• Wild West and Close of the Frontier

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Question

• Why would the traumatic effects of the mid-late
  19th Century (Civil War, Reconstruction, etc.)
  bring about the death of Romanticism?

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Realism vs. Romantics

• Real life
• Not really interested in lofty ideas of higher
  truth
• Nurture (people products of env.)
• Satire and irony
• American uniqueness
• Language how people actually talk

• Feelings and intuition
• Fascinated with higher truth
• Nature (Good and Evil.)
• Serious and Straightforward
• European Traditionalism
• Language fancy and European

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Romantics and Realists Similarities

• Both felt cities sites of corruption, death, etc.
• Both value lived experience over philosophy
• Believe that people are improvable
• Reject predestination, direct involvement of
  divine

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Question

• Given what you now know about Realism, how would
  you guess a Realist hero would differ from a
  Romantic hero?

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Realism A New Kind of Hero

• Romantics such as Melville, Irving, Poe, and
  Cooper all wrote about larger-than-life
  characters doing larger-than-life things
• Not interested in simple realism b/c thought it
  ignored higher truths
• Realist Hero, in contrast
• Doesnt believe in/ uninterested in higher
  truth- typically just getting by
• Portrayed without filter of personal feelings,
  romanticism, or idealism.
• Often an outcast or a rebel
• Often uneducated, uncultured, powerless, or poor

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Realism
Psychological Fiction
Regionalism
Realist Poets
Naturalism
Twain
James, Chopin
Whitman, Dickenson
Crane, Bierce, London
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Branches of Realism Regionalism

• Realists no longer ashamed of American
  provincial roots
• Thus, would portray
• Speech patterns
• Customs/ Day-to-day life
• Environment
• Music
• of place as accurately as possible
• Goals varied
• Some wished to showcase unique American character
• Some wished to expose our flaws in order to bring
  social change
• Twains Huckleberry Finn is a strong example
• Written in dialect
• Unflinching description of physically beautiful,
  morally repugnant landscape of pre- Civil War
  Missouri.

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Branches of Realism Naturalism

• Frank Norris, Jack London, Stephen Crane
• Went Beyond Realism (of Twain, e.g.) in attempt
  to describe life as it really, really, was.
• Strongly inspired by Darwinism- believed human
  behavior essentially operates as survival of the
  fittest
• Tended to view life as a grim, losing battle
  where people have few choices and live according
  to natural laws out of their control.

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Branches of Realism Psychological Fiction

• For example, Henry James, Kate Chopin
• Disagreed with Naturalists that people driven
  only by crude instinct
• Instead, concentrated on detailed studies of
  characters motivations
• James- sophisticated rich Americans traveling in
  Europe
• Chopin- smart women struggling mightily against
  the 19th Century cult of domesticity

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Branches of Realism Walt Whitman and Emily
Dickenson

• Arguably, the two great pioneers of American
  Poetry
• Both abandoned European forms- wrote in free
  verse
• American themes to poetry
• Gave two new jobs for poetry
• Whitman- celebratory, troublemaking (like
  Regionalists)
• Dickenson- subversive, exacting (like
  psychological fiction)

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Mark Twain

• 1835-1910
• Grew up in slaveholding Missouri
• Briefly fought in Civil War for South- deserted
• Known in time mostly for his stand-up routine-
  deadpan and sarcastic
• Very much a self-promoter
• Personal and financial tragedy made him extremely
  bitter in later life

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Huckleberry Finn Whats the fuss?

• Hemmingway All modern American fiction comes
  from one book by Mark Twain called Huck Finn.
• It includes pretty much all branches of realism-
  from a smiling realism sometimes to a
  psychological text at others
• Use of dialect groundbreaking
• Satirical genius- Deeply ironic- horrible truths
  disguised in a comic tone
• Triumph of narration-
• Social conscience that is far ahead of its time