Realism:
➢ Realism originated in France as reálisme.
➢ It called for “reality and truth” in the depiction of ordinary life.
➢ Some representatives are: Zola, Flaubert, Balzac and Dostoyevsky.
Bret Harte,“The Outcasts of Poker Flat”, “Tennessee’s Partner”
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Mary E. W. Freeman, “A New England Nun” Kate Chopin, The Awakening Mark Twain
American Realism: Local Color
➢ local color, “an amalgam of romantic plots and realistic descriptions of things immediately observable: the dialects, customs, sights, and sounds of regional America”
Mark Twain (1835—1910), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Life on the Mississippi (1883).
Hale Waihona Puke Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens (1835—1910)
3. His father died when he was 12 and then he left school.
Definition and features:
➢ Realism: “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.” (W.D. Howells)
a. verisimilitude of details derived from observation b. representative in plot, setting and character c. an objective rather than an idealized view of human experience
Mark Twain was a great American humorist. A white linen suit and a cigar became his trademarks in public appearances.
Mark Twain
pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), American writer and humorist, whose best work is characterized by broad, often irreverent humor or biting social satire. Twain's writing is also known for realism of place and language, memorable characters, and hatred of hypocrisy and oppression.
➢ “The Gilded Age”: “an age of extremes”— “of decline and progress, of poverty and dazzling wealth, of gloom and buoyant hope”.
➢ the railroad: It changed the way in which people lived and worked.
Mark Twain
& “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
Historical Background:
➢ the Civil War (1861—1864): “The industrial North had triumphed over the agrarian South, and from that victory came a society based on mass labor and mass consumption.”
Mark Twain’s Life:
Life
1. Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. “Mark Twain” means “two fathom’s depth of navigable water”.
2. He lived in a town named Hannibal along the Mississippi when he was a child. His life experience in the town was used in his famous novels.
Representative writers:
William Dean Howells (1837—1920), The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and Criticism and Fiction.
Henry James (1843—1916), Daisy Miller (1878), The Ambassadors (1903), The Wings of the Dove (1902) and The Art of Fiction.