Transcript Document

American Literature
030533/4/5, 31st Oct. 2006
Lecture Six
The American Realism
(I)
(1865 - 1918)
I. Introduction
1.
1)
2)
The reasons for the coming of American realism:
The Civil War which broke out in 1861 taught men that life was
not so good, man was not and God was not. The war marked a
change, in the quality of American life, a deterioration, in fact,
of American moral values. It led people to question the
assumptions: natural goodness, the optimistic view of nature and
man, benevolent God.
In post-bellum America increasing industrialization and
mechanization of the country in full swing produced soon
extremes of wealth and poverty. Wealth and power were more
and more concentrated in the hands of the few “captains of
industry” or “robber barons”, but life for the millions was fast
becoming a veritable struggle for survival.
3) The frontier was about to close and the safety
valve was ceasing to operate, a reexamination of
life began. Beneath the glittering surface of
prospective there lay suffering and unhappiness,
Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt.
4) The age of Romanticism and Transcendentalism
was by and large over. Meanwhile younger
writers appeared on the scene, such as William
Dean Howells, Henry James, Mark Twain, and
so on, which means the coming of new literary
age, American realism.
2. What is American realism?
1) As a literary movement realism came in the latter half
of the nineteenth century as a reaction against “the lie”
of romanticism and sentimentalism. It expressed the
concern for the world of experience, of the
commonplace, and for the familiar and the low.
2) The American realists advocated “verisimilitude of
detail derived from observation,” the effort to
approach the norm of experience —— a reliance on
the representative in plot, setting, and character, and to
offer an objective rather than an idealized view of
human nature and experience.
3. The schools of American Realism:
1) Frontier Humor
2) Midwestern realism
3) Cosmopolitan Novelist
4) Regionalism (local color)
5) Naturalism
6) The Chicago School of poets
7) The rise of black American literature
II. Frontier Humor
 It is the vital and exuberant literature that was
generated by the westward expansion of the United
States in the late 18th and the 19th centuries.
 The spontaneity, sense of fun, exaggeration, fierce
individuality, and irreverence for traditional Eastern
values in frontier humor reflect the optimistic spirit of
pre-Civil War America.
 Frontier humor appears mainly in tall tales of
exaggerated feats of strength, rough practical jokes
(especially on sophisticated Easterners and greenhorns),
and tales of encounters with panthers, bears, and
snakes. These tales are filled with rough, homely
wisdom.
III. Midwestern Realism
 It just refers to William Dean Howells’s
realism because he came from the
American midwest and carefully
interweaved the life and emotions of
ordinary middle-class there in his works.
 Also because he was the champion of
realism, having helped to publish many
realistic local color writings by Bret Harte,
Mark Twain, George Washington Cable,
and others.
William Dean Howells
(1837 - 1920)
1. About the author:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Howells, the second son of eight children, had little formal
education. Working as a typesetter and a printer's apprentice, he
educated himself through intensive reading and the study of
Spanish, French, Latin, and German.
His campaign biography for Abraham Lincoln earned him
enough money to travel to New England and meet the great
literary figures of the day, and the post of U. S. Consul to Venice
from 1861 to 1865.
As editor and critic Howells was generous in constructive and
sympathetic reviews, helping younger and more radical writers to
get a hearing by encouraging many others from Henry James to
Bret Harte and Frank Norris to Mark Twain.
He was, for several decades, the dean of his country’s literature
and became the first president of the American Academy of Arts
and Letters in 1907.
He supported socialism and opposed American imperialism.
2. His literary-aesthetic ideas:
1) He defines realism as “fidelity to experience and
probability of motive”, as a quest of the average and
the habitual rather than the exceptional or the uniquely
high or low.
2) To him realism is not mere photographic pictures of
externals but includes a central concern with motives
and psychological conflicts. So the main line of
development in the novel is not from Dickens and
Thackeray but from the psychological analysis of
Hawthorne and George Eliot to James.
3) In his eyes truth is the highest beauty, but truth
includes the view that morality penetrates all things.
4) A free and simple design where event follows event
without the fettering control of intrigue, but where all
grows naturally out of character and conditions, is the
supreme form of fiction.
5) Writers should winnow tradition and write in keeping
with current humanitarian ideals.
6) The literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or
subjective evaluations on books but should follow the
detached scientist in accurate description,
interpretation, and classification.
3. His Works:

1)
2)
3)
Although he wrote over a hundred books in various genres,
including novels, poems, literary criticism, plays, memoirs, and
travel narratives, Howells is best known today for his realistic
fiction, including
A Modern Instance (1881), on the then-new topic of the social
consequences of divorce
The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), his best-known work and one
of the first novels to study the American businessman
A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), an exploration of
cosmopolitan life in New York City as seen through the eyes of
Basil and Isabel March, the protagonists of Their Wedding
Journey (1871) and other works.
 His masterpiece: The Rise of Silas Lapham
1) A fine specimen of American realistic writing. There is
nothing heroic, dramatic or extraordinary. Howells is
here so devoted to the small, the trivial, and the
commonplace.
2) He has always emphasized on ethics. He stresses the
need for sympathy and moral integrity, and the need
for different social classes to harmoniously adapt to
their environment and to one another.
3) Howells did not approve of competitive economic
individualism. He was convinced that laissez-faire
competition had proved the rapacity of man .
IV. Cosmopolitan Novelist
 Henry James ‘s fame rested largely upon his
handling of his major fictional theme, the
international theme, that is the meeting of
America and Europe, American innocence in
contact and contrast with cosmopolitan European
decadence, and the moral and psychological
complications arising therefrom. So he was
called the cosmopolitan novelist.
Henry James
(1843 - 1916)
1. Brief account of his life:
1) He was born into a wealthy cultured family of New
England. His father was an eminent philosopher and
reformer, and his brother, William James, was to e the
famous philosopher and psychologist.
2) Most of his life he settled down in Europe except of
some visits to America. In 1915 he became the
naturalized British citizen. He was not married but once
loved his attractive cousin who died young.
3) A voluminous writer, he was influenced by some
English, European and American writers. One American
author who exerted a measure of influence on James is
Hawthorne whose insight into the human psyche
impressed the younger writer deeply.
2. His creative life

1)
2)
3)


1)
2)
The first period(1865-1882). The works in this period reveal
James’ fascination with his “international theme”
The American
Daisy Miller
The Portrait of a Lady
The second period (1882-1895). During this time he focuses on
tales and plays, but most of them prove a failure.
The last one(1895-1909)
A few novellas and tales dealing with childhood and adolescence.
In the major phase of his career he returned to his old ground. He
completed his trilogies (the summit of his art): The Ambassadors,
The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl
3. His literary-aesthetic ideas（see his The
Art of Fiction）
1) Art must be related to life. It must be life
transformed and changed so that the art form
would give the truthful impression of actuality.
2) Though closely related to life, art is important in
its own way. It is art that makes life, makes
interest, makes importance.
3) He was concerned with point of view which is at
the center of his aesthetic of the novel.
4. His political-social ideas and attitudes:
1) The spokesman of the wealthy.
2) Be conservative toward overzealous reformers(the
similar way of Hawthorne)
3) But he was critical of U.S. imperialist behavior and
American’s obsession with business, its extremes of
wealth and poverty, its lack of culture and
sophistication.
4) Like Hawthorne, James regarded evil as essentially of
inward cause and cure, advocated free willed
renunciation of the low or mean, and repeatedly
emphasized magnanimity and the beauty of goodness.
Homework:
1. Please read Mark Twin’s masterpiece
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and
introduce it’s major themes to the class.