Doug wrote:
I don't think people are really looking for "realism",
anyway.
************* You've got the quotes around realism for a
valid reason. Realism, as applied to literature, was a
literary style popular in the US after the Civil War, and it
is a mistake to equate it with "realistic."
Moby Dick, although its depiction of whaling might be
accurate and realistic, is not Realism. It is classic
Romanticism, an adventurous and heroic story, the antithesis
of Realism. Realism was, at least in part, a direct reaction
against Romanticism, portraying the unattractive lives of
ordinary people caught up in unattractive situations such as
poverty and prostitution. Realism led into the decidedly
pessimistic determinism of American Naturalism.
That terms get mixed up is not much concern to me, but the
one thing I see that I don't like is that there was a time
when Realism was an important style of writing. Using the
term Realism in relation to literature, when one simply means
realistic, allows it to conveniently piggyback onto the
significance and importance of a movement that was based on
different values.
miker
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