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Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature
French literature of the 19th century

French literature of the nineteenth century is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in French from 1799 to 1900. Many of the developments in French literature in this period parallel changes in the visual arts....
 and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society 'as they were'. In the spirit of general "realism
Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation....
", Realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.

lass="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m297686",this)' onMouseout='hide("m297686")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/George_Eliot">George Eliot
George Eliot

Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an England novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era....
's novel Middlemarch stands as a great milestone in the realist tradition.






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Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature
French literature of the 19th century

French literature of the nineteenth century is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in French from 1799 to 1900. Many of the developments in French literature in this period parallel changes in the visual arts....
 and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society 'as they were'. In the spirit of general "realism
Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation....
", Realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.

Anglophones

George Eliot
George Eliot

Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an England novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era....
's novel Middlemarch stands as a great milestone in the realist tradition. It is a primary example of nineteenth-century realism's role in the naturalization of the burgeoning capitalist marketplace.

William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells was an United States Realism author and literary critic....
 was the first American author to bring a realist aesthetic to the literature of the United States. His stories of 1850s Boston upper-crust life are highly regarded among scholars of American fiction and by anyone who has an appreciation for realist writing. His most popular novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham
The Rise of Silas Lapham

The Rise of Silas Lapham is a novel written by William Dean Howells in 1885 about the materialism rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing morality susceptibility....
, depicts a man who, ironically, falls from materialistic fortune by his own mistakes. The novel ends with his return to the farm he once left behind. Howells is known for his wry humor, wit, and well developed characters.

Zenith

Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert was a France writer who is counted among the greatest Western literature. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style....
 is regarded by many critics as representing the zenith of the realist style with his unadorned prose and attention to the details of everyday life. Later "realist" writers included Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century France writer and considered one of the fathers of the modern short story.A prot?g? of Gustave Flaubert, Maupassant's stories are characterized by their economy of style and their efficient, effortless d?nouement....
, Boleslaw Prus
Boleslaw Prus

Boleslaw Prus , whose actual name was Aleksander Glowacki, was a Poland journalist and novelist who is known especially for his novels The Doll and Pharaoh ....
 and, in a sense, Émile Zola
Émile Zola

?mile Fran?ois Zola was an influential France writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of Naturalism , an important contributor to the development of Naturalism , and a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus....
, whose naturalism
Naturalism (literature)

Naturalism is a Literature Literary movement that seeks to replicate a Verisimilitude everyday life, as opposed to such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment....
 is often regarded as an offshoot of realism.

See also

  • French literature of the 19th century
    French literature of the 19th century

    French literature of the nineteenth century is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in French from 1799 to 1900. Many of the developments in French literature in this period parallel changes in the visual arts....
  • American realism
    American realism

    American realism was a turn of the century idea in art, music and literature that showed through these different types of work, reflections of the time period....
  • Chanson réaliste
    Chanson réaliste

    Chanson r?aliste, or realist song, refers to a style of music performed in France primarily from the 1880s until the end of World War II....
     (realist song), a style of music which was directly influenced by realist literary movement in France


realism is whatever i want it to be

External links

  • on BBC Radio 4
    BBC Radio 4

    BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
    ’s In Our Time
    In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)

    In Our Time is a discussion programme hosted since 2002 by Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom, described as a series investigating the "history of ideas"....
     featuring Philip Davis, A.N. Wilson and Dinah Birch