By Lechi Eke
Literary Realism started in 1820 as a rejection or negative response to Romanticism. Romanticism had dominated art and Literature globally (meaning western civilization), from the late 1700s. Remember the 1798 collaborative publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Lyrical Ballads that started Romanticism? Realism as a literary movement rose up to counter its exotic themes and embroidered *emotionalism and drama.
*I can see in my mind’s eye the dramatic and exaggerated emotionalism of literary readings at that time. I remember coming across during my research on Romanticism how Samuel Taylor Coleridge held literary readings in some town. Now, compare that with the literary readings of masters of emotionalism like Byron and Shelley!
Realism began in the mid 19th century literary works of French novelists and writers like Honore de Balzac, Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842) and Russian literary giant, Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837).
Stendhal is esteemed for his delicate analysis of his characters’ psychology in his novels: Le Rouge et le Noir or The Red and the Black *(1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme or The Charterhouse of Parma (1839). Also Russian poet, novelist, and playwright Alexander Pushkin is highly esteemed and celebrated today as a writer of realism even in his romantic works!
*Thou student of Literature, note 1830 – was it not the same period the Romantic poets, dramatists, and philosophers were writing? This shows that these literary periods overlap one another. While you’re thinking that what you’re doing is awesome, someone else has found fault with it and has started garnishing it to look better, or building something entirely new to counter it. My advice, just run on your lane and play your part!
Realism as a literary movement extended from the late 19th C and early 20th century lasting for about a hundred years; ending in 1920.
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) was well-known for his writing which carried unfiltered view of society. History records him as the founder of Literary Realism. Known widely by his penname, Stendhal, Marie-Henri Beyle was also one of the earliest practitioners of realism as a literary school in his writings.
However, the father of Realism is French painter and sculptor, Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). Courbet was inspired to paint the lives of peasants and workers at a time when it was fashionable to paint royalty, aristocrats and high events. He and his countryman, Jean-Francois Millet found inspiration in painting the ordinary (both people and things). Courbet maintained that “the only possible source for art is the artist’s own experience.” So, he painted what he could see!
By this, Courbet painted figurative works of art, like landscapes, seascapes and still lifes. He became controversial as he painted what in his time was considered vulgar, like rural bourgeoisie, peasants, and even the working conditions of the poor.
Not concerned with academic convention and the Romanticism of visual arts of his time, Courbet shunned the perfection of line and form, and delved into spontaneous and rough handling of paint which portrays the irregularities in nature. In so doing, he challenged the contemporary art ideas by showing the harsh realities of life as it appears.
The aim of literary realism is to present familiar things as they are. It aims at giving to the learner, the student, the total knowledge of human society, to enable him to understand the human nature, human motivations and organization or tradition. Realism goes further to teach the student his relationship with the world and nature.
Literary Realism is a technique used by many schools of writers. This technique is indicated in different kinds of subject matters or themes representing middle class lifestyle. Ordinary or everyday living activities are depicted in this kind of writing. Writers of this literary school embraced writing that was true to everyday living shunning the idealized or romanticized kind of presentation.
Compare this to the writing about kings and queens, aristocrats and nobles, in exalted or fancy language. You can also compare this type of writing to writing about shepherds and cottage/rural lifestyle called pastoral, or yet to chivalric stories in simple languages.
Literary Realism targets ordinary people doing ordinary things. We can see how far stories have come, from the Ancient or Classical period when they told stories of gods, legends, myths (some critics would say because of lack of imagination – for example the Classical myth of Oedipus who killed his father and married his mother because it was determined by the gods! – thus blaming external forces for human actions).
Consider also the Medieval period when they told chivalric stories of great legends who fought off evil beings (like dragons, fearsome beasts, etc.) and delivered country folks; stories about lives of the saints, religious morals, prayer, meditation, etc., to stories of royalty, rebirth, rediscovery, secular curiosity, etc., of the neoclassicism called Renaissance era, with its heightened language.
Think of the Reformation era dealing with the church and the state and the purification of the church, the belief that the Bible should be the source of spiritual authority, and not tradition or state.
As I have pointed out several times, these periods overlap one another. The same time the Renaissance and reformation of the church were happening, was still the era of the kings and queens (Elizabethan, Jacobean, Carolean, Cavaliers, Metaphysics, Puritans) – of different schools of thoughts churning out poetry, plays, essays, philosophical views, etc.
Then came the age of extreme reasoning and logic; of industrial revolution, of aristocratic social and political norms of the Enlightenment era when men of letters challenged established institutions like the church and the state, some using satires as weapons to demand for freedom, social expression, etc.
From there we came to the Romantic period with its madness of freedom, emotionalism, extreme individualism, etc. And now, the period of recognizing the least thought of people – the ordinary people!
So, realism shuns artificiality, artificial convention, exotic and supernatural elements.
Realism rose in rejection of Romanticism, just as Romanticism rose in rejection of Enlightenment era!
Major realist writers are: Honore de Balzac (1799-*1850 same 1850 that Wordsworth the father of Romanticism died), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), George Elliot (1819-1880), Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), William Dean Howells (1837-1920), Henry James (1843-1916), Mark Twain (1835-1910), Edith Wharton (1862-1937), etc.
*To be continued next edition.
