Realism Across the Globe (Volume E)

Realism

• truth without sentiment• democracy• middle- and working-

class issues• industrialization • city versus countryside• sensory experience• “beauty”

Literary Aims

• ordinary language

• omniscient or first-person narrator

• issues with plot, scenarios, endings

• “unvarnished truth telling”

• ethical dilemmas

• questions

Elements

Darwinism and Naturalism

• adaptation to one’s social environment

• choice and human biochemistry

• social profiling

Capturing Reality

Higuchi Ichiyō

• Japanese realism• poor, marginal

characters• city life and finance• speech, dialogue

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)

• Nobel Prize (1913)• polydidact• multifaceted• Indian realism• school at

Shantiniketan, 1901• Rabindra-sangit

Dostoevsky• “They call me a

psychologist but it’s not true. I’m merely a realist in a higher sense, that is to say I describe all the depths of the human soul” (p. 635).

• Russian Orthodox Church

• 1821, Moscow• death sentence, exile• gambling, epilepsy

Though it spread quickly across the globe, and in some cases developed from local literary traditions, realism began primarily in which of the following?

a. France and Russiab. Japanc. North America and Britaind. Britain and France

Test Your Knowledge

Realist fiction tended to feature which of the following?

a. great heroes of the pastb. the poorc. British kingsd. mythic archetypes

Test Your Knowledge

Realist fiction tended to emphasize which of the following?

a. transcendent experienceb. spiritual awakeningc. empirical realityd. sense and sensibility

Test Your Knowledge

The genre primarily associated with realism is: _________.

a. dramab. poetryc. prose nonfictiond. the novel

Test Your Knowledge

Visit the StudySpace at:http://wwnorton.com/studyspace

For more learning resources, please visit the StudySpace site for

The Norton Anthology Of World Literature.

This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint presentation for

The Norton Anthology

of World Literature