Literary “Isms” You need to Know!

Or, a crash course in over a hundred years of philosophical ideas that influenced how

writers wrote and what they wrote about

These “ISMs” are all ‘Western’Remember, Lu Xun

starts reading western (European) literature in translation while in Japan.

In particular, he is exposed to German, Russian and Polish literature.

And while writers in each country modified the ‘isms” to reflect both the values and challenges perceived by the writers, there are certain consistencies across national literatures

Realism is our first idea . . .Realism is a reaction to Romanticism, which dominated literature through the mid-1800s, but after brutal wars in America and Europe, coupled with industrial expansion, and increased urbanization, literature responds with less optimism, and more, well REALISM

Realism focuses on everyday life•Everyday people•Everyday events•Everyday problems•Nothing heroic•Nothing epic•Nothing transcendentIn fact, there aren’t that many “happy” endings, just endings.

Realism presents people faced withUnhappy

marriages, lack of work, displacement, gender inequality, worker exploitation, class conflicts, and corruption

Naturalism A branch of Realism, Naturalism examines the effects of natural and social forces on the individual.

Whereas in Realism humans have some element of agency (the ability to act with some control over their lives), in Naturalism, humans are often at the mercy of the environment and their own instincts (both good and bad).

A writer who is a “Naturalist”Gives us stories

that through setting, theme, conflict, and PLENTY of IRONY show human destiny as beyond individual control

These are not happy stories!

It’s as if the Universe does not care about whether YOU survive at all.

Surrealism is another tale altogether . . .

According to Collins English Dictionary, that weird Dali-style of painting is trying to capture the subconscious mind and dream state by mashing bizarre images together:

“(Fine Arts & Visual Arts / Art Movements) (sometimes capital) a movement in art and literature in the 1920s, which developed esp. from dada, characterized by the evocative juxtaposition of incongruous images in order to include unconscious and dream elements[from French surréalisme, from SUR-1 + réalisme REALISM]”

So, when we read Lu Xun, it seems as ifHe is going from this, as aRepresentation of the classical:

To this, as a representation of the surreal:

His characters can be seen as pawns in the hands of forces beyond their control . . . Or not

Writers Associated with each “ism”Realism:

GogolTolstoyGorkiZolaMaupassa

ntHowellsGissing

•Naturalism:

• Crane•Ibsen•Chekov•Dreiser•Norris•Goncourt •Hauptmann

Surrealism:

•Apollinaire•Andre Breton•Ionesco•Genet•Beckett•Burroughs•Robbe-Grillet