Knowra American literary realism American literary realism American literary realism depicts ordinary life and social conditions through plausible characters, settings, and events. It favors observable detail and social circumstance over idealized plots and heroic types.
Literary realism : A literary movement that represents people, settings, and events with attention to plausible everyday experience. American realism adapts this broader movement to the country's regions, institutions, and social conflicts.
American Civil War : The 1861–1865 conflict between the United States and the Confederacy over secession and slavery. The war and its aftermath disrupted older literary ideals and altered the society realism portrayed.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : Mark Twain's 1884 novel follows Huck Finn and Jim as they travel along the Mississippi River. Its vernacular voice and river setting turn regional experience into a major realist narrative.
Romanticism : A broad artistic and intellectual movement that emphasized emotion, imagination, nature, and individual experience. Its idealized subjects and heightened feeling offer a clear contrast to realism's everyday social observation.
American regional literature : Literature shaped by the distinctive histories, landscapes, speech, and social life of United States regions. Realism helped establish regional experience as central material for American fiction.
Narrative point of view : The position and perspective from which a story's events are narrated. Realist narrators shape how closely the account observes characters and social life.
Mark Twain : The pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, an American writer known for novels, travel writing, and humor. Twain's vernacular narration and regional settings helped establish a distinctly American realist style.
The Rise of Silas Lapham : William Dean Howells's 1885 novel traces a self-made businessman and his family's social ambitions. It examines money, manners, and moral choices in contemporary middle-class life.
Sentimentalism : A literary mode that uses emotional appeals and moral feeling to shape readers' responses. Realist writers often resisted its overt emotional cues and simplified moral resolutions.
Literary naturalism : A literary approach that emphasizes the influence of environment, heredity, and material forces on human lives. Realism's attention to social conditions prepared the way for naturalism's stronger determinism.
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