1830-1860

AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

According to Nathaniel Hawthorne, a romantic novel was concerned with internal truths,

or “truths of the human heart” (preface to House of the

Seven Gables).

ROMANTICISM

Focus on emotions/feelings of characters

Internal world > External worldImagination > Reality

Intuition > ReasonSupernatural events/ideas

Battle of Good vs. EvilIdealized version of Nature

KEY ELEMENTS OF AMERICAN ROMANTICISM

Ralph Waldo EmersonHenry David Thoreau

Edgar Allan PoeHerman MelvilleEmily DickinsonWalt Whitman

ROMANTIC WRITERS

Realism

1865-1895

Realism, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads, the charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

-Ambose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)

“Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.”

-William Dean Howells

Principles of Realism Scientific/rational examination of the

universe Every day experiences — the common,

the average, the non-extreme, the probable – ordinary people in ordinary places, doing ordinary things

Principles of Realism, cont’d Heavy dialogue – attempt to capture

authentic sounds and words (local dialects, colloquialism, slang, etc.)

Limited use of symbolism; heavy use of imagery (concrete description)

Realist Writers Mark Twain Edith Wharton Kate Chopin Henry James

Romanticism or Realism??

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!    Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,    Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,    Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,    Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?    And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star?    Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

SONNET- TO SCIENCE By Edgar Allen Poe

THE OLD APPLE-TREEBy Paul Lawrence Dunbar

THERE's a memory keeps a-runnin'Through my weary head to-night,An' I see a picture dancin'In the fire-flames' ruddy-light;'Tis the picture of an orchard Wrapped in autumn's purple haze,With the tender light about itThat I loved in other days.An' a-standin' in a cornerOnce again I seem to seeThe verdant leaves an' branchesOf an old apple-tree.

You perhaps would call it ugly,An' I don't know but it's so,When you look the tree all overUnadorned by memory's glow; For its boughs are gnarled an' crooked,An' its leaves are gettin' thin,An' the apples of its bearin'Wouldn't fill so large a binAs they used to. But I tell you,When it comes to pleasin' me,It's the dearest in the orchard, —Is that old apple-tree.

Romanticism or Realism?“The Taste of Watermelon” by Borden Deal

“How It Happened” by Arthur Conan Doyle

“The Destructors”by Graham Greene

“Real Time” by Amit Chaudhuri

“Ming’s Biggest Prey”

by Patricia Highsmith“Her First Ball”

by Katherine Mansfield

Naturalism1885-1914, and the 1930s

Naturalism: a philosophical position

Employs the literary technique of realism BELIEF: Humans are higher animals, but lack free will BELIEF: Man is victimized by forces over which he has no control.

Heredity Environment Chance

These forces produce different levels of vice (selfishness, greed, sexual immorality, alcoholism, etc.) within us, and with enough pressure we will return to the “beast” within.

BELIEF: The human will exists, but it is enslaved.

Karl MarxSocial scientist,

economic theorist5% of population

controls 95% of wealth95% of population is

victimizedClass war between

bourgeoisie and proletariat

Man is victimized by economic forces.

Sigmund FreudFather of

psychiatryMan has a

conscious and subconscious

We are ruled and our actions motivated by our subconscious

Man is victimized by his own subconscious.

Charles DarwinBiologist, naturalistMan is the end product

of millions of years of evolved beings.

Natural selection (the strongest survive; survival of the fittest)

Man is victimized by his own heredity.

American NaturalistsJack London, Call of the WildStephen Crane, “The Open Boat”Ernest Hemingway, Old Man and the SeaJohn Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

A man said to the universe:“Sir, I exist!”“However,” replied the universe,“The fact has not created in meA sense of obligation.”

-Stephen Crane (1894)

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.

-Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat”