Bliss Perry (essay date 1920)
SOURCE: "Realism," in A Study of Prose Fiction, Revised Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920, pp. 217-57.
[In the excerpt that follows, Perry first examines the primary meanings of "realism" in both fine art and literature from the Renaissance through the twentieth century and subsequently proposes a definition of realism as an "effort to depict things as they are, life as it is."]
We are to discuss in this chapter a somewhat difficult theme,—one that has long occupied the attention of the reading public, and...
Source: Literary Criticism (1400-1800), ©1999 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
(The entire page is 8412 words.)
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