realism
realism,a literary term so widely used as to be more or less meaningless except when used in contradistinction to some other movement, e.g. naturalism , Expressionism , Surrealism . Sir P. Harvey 's original definition was ‘a loosely used term meaning truth to the observed facts of life (especially when they are gloomy)’, which would seem to indicate that he had in mind such post-French-realist works as those of Gissing , A. Morrison , G. A. Moore , Maugham 's Liza of Lambeth, etc., most of which have proletarian or lower-middle-class settings. The French realist school of the mid-19th cent. (for which the novelist Champfleury, 1821 – 89 , produced a manifesto, Le Réalisme, 1857 ) stressed ‘sincerity’ as opposed to the ‘liberty’ proclaimed by the Romantics; it insisted on accurate documentation, sociological insight, an accumulation of the details of material fact, an avoidance of poetic...
[The entire page is 289 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Oxford University Press Titles
