Literature in English: Middle Ages to the Present - Realism and the 19th Century Context and 20th Century
Introduction to Realism and Historical Context
Evolution of Realism:
Preceded by Romanticism, which emphasized sensibility, imagination, nature, rural life, the past, mythology, and a "fresher" language.
The reaction against Romanticism grew gradually throughout the 19th century.
Full-fledged Realism was established by the end of the 19th century.
Dominant Mode: Realism became the dominant mode of writing in the 19th century in the British Isles and the United States.
Geographical and Temporal Scope:
Victorian Britain: 1837–1901.
Post-Civil War America: 1865–1914.
Victorian Period (1837–1901)
Definition & Timeline:
Named after Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901.
1815: Defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo (a precursor context).
1832: First Reform Bill (increased voting rights for middle-class men).
1837: Ascension of Victoria.
1901: Death of Queen Victoria.
1914: Beginning of World War I (the "Great War").
Victorian Britain: The Golden Age
Technological and Industrial Progress:
Britain was the first urban industrial society in history.
The Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition (1851) served as a showcase of British industrialism (destroyed by fire in 1936).
1831: Invention of the telegraph.
1841: Invention of photography.
The invention of the steam engine led to a railway boom.
Steam-powered printing presses facilitated the growth of media.
The British Empire:
Britain ruled more than a quarter of the globe’s landmass, including Australia, Canada, and India.
1833: Abolition of slavery in British colonies.
1877: Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India.
Socio-Political Reforms:
Rise of the industrial middle class (manufacturers and businessmen) compared to the landed gentry (e.g., characters like Jane’s uncle John versus Rochester in Jane Eyre).
1832 Reform Bill: Expanded voting to more middle-class men.
1870 Education Act: Established universal primary education.
The New Reading Public:
Books were a luxury, but literacy (especially in the middle class) grew.
Circulating libraries became popular.
Novels were often serialized in weekly or monthly magazines or produced as three-deckers (three volumes published in installments).
Frequent use of cliff-hangers due to serialization.
Victorian Britain: The Age of Doubt
Overview: Optimism gradually gave way to doubt, nostalgia, and bewilderment regarding the rapidly altering environment.
Social and Environmental Problems:
Industrialization caused famine, appalling work conditions, and child labor.
Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (1838) illustrated these conditions.
Loss of rural communal patterns; individuals felt isolated in the urban world.
Crisis of Faith:
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859): Theory of evolution by natural selection undermined biblical accounts of creation.
Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867): Critique of capitalism and industrialism, leading to class hostility awareness.
Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism: Applying "survival of the fittest" to capitalist competition in Principles of Biology (1864).
Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism: Usefulness as the measure of morality rather than moral rules.
Friedrich Nietzsche: Declared "God is dead" in The Joyful Science (1882).
Decline of Glory: Economic lead began to fade; political tensions in Europe rose.
Victorian Prudery, Censorship, and Hypocrisy
Strict Social Norms: Sexuality and profanity were unaccepted in literature.
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre (1847) shocked readers with its focus on women's sexuality and rights.
Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure (1895) faced intense public protest for its treatment of sexuality.
D.H. Lawrence: Viewed as a pornographer for The Rainbow (1915) and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928).
Censorship Examples:
Oscar Wilde: Imprisoned for two years of hard labor for "gross indecency" (his relationship with Alfred Douglas). He wrote De Profundis (1885–1887) in prison.
Satirical Attacks:
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895): Mocked Victorian earnestness and pretense.
George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1916): Exposed social hypocrisy.
Victorian Literature: General Features
The Victorian Author: Authors were part of society rather than outcasts; they both supported and criticized societal values.
Greatest Dramatist: Oscar Wilde.
Greatest Poet: Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Greatest Novelist: Charles Dickens.
Theme of Self-Scrutiny:
Autobiography: Wilde's De Profundis; Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (1833–1834).
Nonfiction Prose: Darwin’s Origin of the Species; Florence Nightingale’s medical reform proposals; Matthew Arnold’s Essays in Criticism.
Formal Characteristics of Victorian Fiction:
Dominant literary form.
Attention to closely observed detail.
Large, comprehensive social worlds.
Protagonists seeking to define their place in society.
Victorian Fiction Authors and Works
Charles Dickens (1812–1870): Prolific and endorsed middle-class values but highlighted social concerns/melodrama.
Pickwick Papers (1836), Oliver Twist (1837), A Christmas Carol (1843).
Great Expectations (1860–1861): A Bildungsroman (novel of formation).
Dombey and Son (1846): Fragment "Coming of the Railway" notes the destructive impact of the London to Birmingham line.
Hard Times (1854): Fragment "Coketown" critiques utilitarianism and the obsession with facts.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863): Famous for Vanity Fair (1847–1848).
The Brontë Sisters: Anne, Charlotte (Jane Eyre), and Emily (Wuthering Heights).
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans): Notable for Middlemarch (1871–1872).
Victorian Poetry and Drama
Poetry:
Dramatic Monologue: A poem addressed to the reader where the speaker reveals views and feelings. Distinct from the theatrical "soliloquy" (alone on stage).
Examples: Robert Browning's My Last Duchess (1842); Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Locksley Hall (1842).
Narrative Verse: Longer poems that tell a story with plot, setting, and characters. Narrator is usually part of the story.
Drama:
Frivolous plays early on; significant drama emerged late in the era.
Sophisticated wit: Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere’s Fan).
Social Drama: George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion).
Comic Operas: Gilbert and Sullivan (precursors to the modern musical).
Other Types of Victorian Writing
Aestheticism (1880s–1890s): "Art for art's sake." Art has no moral content and serves to evade materialism and capitalism.
Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890): "All art is quite useless."
Fantasy Writing: Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) — notably teaches no lessons.
Novels of Escapism: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886).
Novels of Sensation: Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868).
Post-Civil War America (1865–1914)
Transformation of a Nation:
1869: Completion of the transcontinental railway.
Rise of the automobile industry by the 1890s.
Dramatic population increase due to immigration (including from Britain and Ireland).
Rapid transcontinental settlement and urbanization.
Growing Unease:
Oversupply of labor, low wages, and dangerous conditions.
Passing of the Frontier (1890): No more "virgin land"; society had to adjust to its marginals.
Literature: Defined American life from diverse points of view and focused on "realism as social argument."
Key American Realist Authors
Mark Twain (1835–1910): "Father of American Realism."
Developed the vernacular voice and satirical exaggeration.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Henry James (1843–1916):
Pushed realism toward pre-modern psychological realism.
The Art of Fiction (1885): A manifesto for realist fiction.
The Portrait of a Lady (1881); The Bostonians (1886).
Jack London (1876–1916): Pioneer of commercial magazine fiction and a naturalist.
The Call of the Wild (1903); White Fang (1906); To Build a Fire (1908).
Edith Wharton (1862–1937): Novels of manners with a naturalist inclination.
The House of Mirth (1905); The Age of Innocence (1920).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), focusing on 19th-century attitudes toward women's mental health.
African-American Intellectuals:
Booker T. Washington: Autobiography Up from Slavery (1901).
W.E.B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk (1903); introduced the concept of double consciousness.
Realist Aesthetics (A Definition)
Core Principle: Attempting to record life as it is lived, rather than how it ought to be or was lived in the past. Emphasis on observation over imagination.
Verisimilitude: The appearance or semblance of truth.
William Dean Howells: "Truthful treatment of material."
Henry James: "The solidity of specification" or the "illusion of life."
Methods of Achievement:
Ordinary characters (not epic heroes).
Precise settings.
Cultural specificities and colloquial language.
Crisis of Representation: Recognition that there is always a difference between the representation and the thing presented. This eventually leads to Modernism and Postmodernism.
Different Types of Realism
Psychological Realism: Stories characterized by a high degree of psychological complexity (e.g., Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charlotte Brontë).
Regionalism (Regionalist Realism): Fidelity to a particular geographical area’s habits, speech, and beliefs. Often suffused with nostalgia to preserve ways of life before industrialization.
Examples: Thomas Hardy (Wessex), Kate Chopin (New Orleans), Mark Twain (Mississippi River Valley).
Naturalism (Naturalist Realism): Late 19th to early 20th century. Founded by Emile Zola.
Application of scientific determinism (Darwinism) to literature.
Pessimistic tone; sense of doom.
Characters from the lower class, often destroyed by major crises in extreme settings.
Magic(al) Realism: Frames realistic surfaces with contrasting elements like myth, dream, or the supernatural (e.g., Gabriel García Márquez).
Surrealism: Furthest removed from realism; moves toward Modernism.
Alfred Lord Tennyson: "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854)
Poem Context: Written in response to a newspaper report in The Times (Nov 13, 1854) about the Battle of Balaclava (Oct 25, 1854) in the Crimean War.
Content:
Celebrates the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers despite the military leadership's "blunder."
Bridges class divisions by calling all six hundred "noble."
The poem uses repetition and rhythmic driving sound (recorded on a wax cylinder by Tennyson in 1890).
Jack London: "To Build a Fire" (1908)
Description: Considered a masterpiece of naturalist fiction.
Short Story Hallmarks:
Economy of setting (Canadian Yukon Territory during the Klondike Gold Rush).
Protagonist unfamiliar with the harshness of the wilderness.
Naturalist Themes: Man's fate is determined by nature, not free will; the protagonist freezes to death while a half-wild dog survives through instinct (survival of the fittest).
Thomas Hardy: "Wessex Heights" (1896/1914)
Wessex: A fictionalized version of rural Southwest England named after a medieval kingdom. A tourist industry today.
Genesis: Written during the outcry against Jude the Obscure; autobiographically inspired.
Themes: Psychological realism and social criticism.
Symbolism of Geography: Heights represent liberty and thinking; lowlands represent alienation, restriction, and "mind-chains."
Characterized by a sense of isolation and backward glances of yearning.
D.H. Lawrence: "Odour of Chrysanthemums" (1914)
Style: Transitions between Victorian Realism and Modernism.
Narratology Concepts:
Story (l'histoire): Succession of fictional events in chronological order.
Text (le récit): The story as presented by the author, often jumbled or filtered.
Focalizer: The perceiving agent (Elizabeth in this story) who determines what is presented.
Content: Working-class setting (miners in the Midlands).
Symbolism of Chrysanthemums: Reappears at a wedding, a birth, a drinking bout, and the arrival of a dead body.
Elizabeth’s perspective (focalizer) allows the reader to see her roles as mother, daughter, wife, neighbor, and daughter-in-law.
Narratology: Point of View (Norman Friedman)
Editorial Omniscience: Narrator stands above the world and addresses the reader.
Neutral Omniscience: Narrator stands above the world but does not address the reader.
I-witness: Character in the world narrates as a witness.
I-protagonist: Protagonist narrates their own story (autobiographical).
Multiple Selective Omniscience: Perspective of multiple characters.
Selective Omniscience: Single character-narrator perspective.
Dramatic Mode/Mimesis: Events are shown unfolding like a play without authorial summary.
Structuralist Narratology: Types of Narrators
Extradiegetic: Outside the story.
Intradiegetic: Part of the narrated world.
Heterodiegetic: Not a character in the story.
Homodiegetic: Has experienced what is narrated.
Autodiegetic: Narrator is the protagonist.
Allodiegetic: Narrator is merely a witness.