Lesson 1: Realism as a Major Literary Movement

Learning outcomes:

1. Define literary movement

2. Trace the origin and establishment of literary movements
3. Discuss Realism as a major literary movement.

Check-in question:

Basing on your understanding of ‘literature’, and reflecting on the terms

‘literary’ and ‘movement’ how would you define ‘literary movement’?

Literary Movements

- J.A. Cuddon (1982) defines the term ‘literary movement’ as ‘commonly

applied to a trend or development in literature’. This is in an effort to
attempt a distinction between literary movements and literary periods.

- Literary movement has also been defined as ‘literary works by various

writers at a specific time, which exhibit similar content, thought, form,
style or philosophy’. (e-Notes)

- From these definitions, the following emerge:

a) It is a trend; an entity subscribed to by many.

b) It develops into a tradition
c) It is an activity of writers/authors
d) It has discernible features which identify it
e) It implies evolution of thought
- The major social drivers like history, politics, culture, philosophy and
ideology can influence a literary movement. This is because writers
express themselves within widespread socio-cultural and political
situations.

Writers not critics define a literary movement.

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 What do you understand by:

a) Literary movement
b) Literary period
c) Literary criticism
d) Literary period

Everything has a beginning!

Origins of literary movements

- We can trace the origins of movements in literature to the establishment

of a literary discipline in the Greco-Roman classical period.
- Plato, then Aristotle, building on the works of Socrates:
a) Discern the uniqueness of use of language in the poetics (later
on literature) and its artistic nature;
b) Establish philosophical groundings of this art
c) Identify categorizations of this art
d) Establish rules for the discipline
e) Identify illustrations of this discipline from the aesthetic
creations available

- The classical age, as we refer to it today, establishes literature as a

discipline that has rules for its aesthetics.
- Over time, different thoughts emerge on these rules with regard to
diverse paradigms, which result in establishment of new rules in the
form of movements.
- Literary movements traced from the classical dispensation broadly taken
an evolutionary mode from:
a) Classicism
b) Medieval age
c) Renaissance
d) Neo-classicism
e) Romanticism

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 f) Realism
g) Modernism
h) Postmodernism
- Movements that have occurred on a relatively smaller scale, or as
variations of existing major movements include:
a) Dadaism
b) Existentialism
c) Surrealism
d) Magical realism
e) Naturalism
f) Absurd, literature of the
g) Transcendentalism, among others.

Realism as a major literary movement

- Realism as a literary movement is an addition to the –isms which

characterize the study of literature.

- Ism- is a distinctive practice, ideology or artistic movement that defines a

particular era. These include:
 Romanticism
 Realism/Naturalism
 Regionalism
 Transcendentalism
 Modernism
 Post modernism
 Existentialism

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- Other ideological isms include feminism, post-colonialism, while practical
isms include structuralism and post-structuralism.

- Realism in art as commonly understood, means therefore, the

technique of copying or imitating, slavishly, of any object, scene,
action or drama in nature.

- It is important to note that the words with and without capital letter
stand for very different ideas. The words "Realism" and "Realists" (note
the capital letter 'R') refer to this particular literary movement. The words
"realism" and "realistic" refer to any work at any time that attempts
verisimilitude-that is, attempts to present the illusion in art (especially
in literature) of life as it really exists.

- We can trace the roots of realism as a technique to the classical

pronouncements of art by Aristotle and Plato who argued that art is
mimetic. For Aristotle, good tragedy (art/drama)
 is an imitation of men in action and,
 the characters must be believable,
 engaging in actions that are plausible (possibility of having
happened or likely to happen/can be deemed real)

- Aim: to represent an objective and accurate representation of life. It

emphasizes verisimilitude and arose in opposition to Romanticism.

- William Dean Howells claims that ‘realism is nothing more and nothing
less than the truthful treatment of material.’

- This encourages suspended disbelief as the audience is persuaded that

they are seeing ‘everyday occurrences in the lives of ordinary people,
devoid of masks or pretenses of propriety’ (the notion of being real!)

- Espoused by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 thus: ‘if the writer could
infuse a “human interest and a semblance of truth” into a fantastic
tale,the reader would suspend judgment concerning plausibility of the
narrative.’

- Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail. To achieve this:

 Complex ethical choices are often the subject.
 Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament
and motive; they are in explicable relation to nature, to each
other, to their social class, to their own past.
 Class is important.
 Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the
sensational, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and
romances.

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  Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; tone
may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.
 Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important:
overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the
century progresses.

Realism therefore:
 Tries to present material as close to a real world situation as
possible;
 Depicts common, everyday subjects;
 Uses ethical dilemmas in the mind of characters to advance
the story and send a moral or political message to the
reader; and
 Espoused the fact that people find the truth through their
experiences.

Realism can be distinguished from the preceding romantic movement

as follows:
1. Whereas the Romantics valued the exceptional, the genius, and the
uncommon individual, the Realists values members of the middle class
and depicting their struggles.
2. Whereas the Romantics esteemed the genius and imagination of the
writer/poet, the Realists wanted to de-emphasize the contribution of the
writer and thought writers should "objectively" see contemporary life as
the material for their writing.
3. Whereas the Romantics valued the details of the present moment as a
way to transcend the moment and the present world, the Realists value
the surface details, the everyday life, and the common conduct of middle
class individuals. They do this with the purpose of creating the illusion of
reality. According to Henrik Ibsen, for example, the effect he was seeking
in his Realistic plays was to make "the spectator feel as if he were
actually sitting, listening, and looking on events happening in real life"
(Wilkie & Hurt, 1997).
4. While the Romantics emphasized the emotional, the intuitive, and the
feelings and insight of the innocent and the genius, the Realists explore
the ethical choices made by common middle class individuals and the
effects and consequences these ethical choices have on the lives of their
middle class heroes.

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 5. While the Romantics value nature as a way of seeing God and man, the
Realists question the existence, or at least the importance of, God and
discount the beliefs of organized Christian religions.
6. Instead of seeking transcendence as the Romantics did, the Realists
focused on ethical choices and morality in the life of middle class
individuals, often without supporting Christian beliefs. The individual is
presented as having the power to choose and decide his destiny, as
opposed to it being left entirely in the hands of God or mystic forces.

Realism can thus be summarized as characterized by:

- Accuracy- It strives to depict its subjects accurately, devoid of
unnecessary dramatics or artistic affectations. They aim for a natural
depiction of the subject. This would include real-life characters-
background, characteristics and relations; elaborate description of
familiar and ordinary settings; use of vernacular and ordinary languages
and treatment of common, everyday occurrences in art. (This points to
the use of literary techniques to create cognitive estrangement. Discuss
how the work still manages to remain a work of art!)
a) Honesty- it aims at depicting honesty rather than illusions. Unpleasant
facts are presented as they are rather than hiding them behind
distortions or opinions as Romantics preferred. The aim is to ‘lay bare’
the truth rather than hide it.
b) Independence- realism tends towards an ‘objective’ presentation of
things, independent of the author/writer, who is treated more as an
observer than an interested participant. It favors texts which seem to
have a life of their own regardless of anyone’s thoughts on the matter.
Authorial intrusion is therefore minimal or totally absent in these works.
c) Ordinariness-the subjects of realist art are defined by their ordinariness,
e.g., the depiction of a shopkeeper rather than a military ruler or a
prince; ordinary streets as setting rather than exotic far-away lands. As
such, most realist writings are often well researched for background and
factual contexts.
d) Difficulties- realistic protagonists are often beset by forces beyond their
control and in many cases they do not triumph, so unhappy endings are
not uncommon though not always. Happy endings are also often
characterized by pyrrhic victories- won at a great cost to the victor.

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 What are the characteristics of realism that qualify it
as a literary movement?

Assignment:
Having understood what Realism as a movement advocates for literary
art;
a) Give the concerns of the realist writer that would oppose EACH of the
following concerns of the romantic writer;
b) Give an example of each of the realist writer’s concerns from any ONE
literary work you are familiar with:
1. Emotions and passion
2. Imagination and wonder
3. The individual’s dreams and ambitions
4. The power and purity of nature
5. Mystery and the supernatural
6. Spontaneity

References
Mack, Maynard. Realism, Symbolism, and European Realities. Norton Anthology of
World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack et al. Vol.2. New York: Norton, 1995. 1061-
1073.
Wilkie, Brian & James Hurt. Realism and naturalism. Literature of the Western World.
Ed. Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. 4th ed. Vol.2. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1997.
971-976.