Realism

[Ben Jackson]

Realism was a 19th Century artistic and literary movement which represented subject matter truthfully, avoiding supernatural element. They represented everyday experience and banal activities. Verisimo and Naturalism can also be considered part of Realism but there's a difference. Verisimo claimed scientific, nature and social usefulness, and Naturalism embraced determinism, stressing that the social atmosphere and environment affect/shape the character of an individual.

Key Members:

??????? Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, George Gissing
?? Benito Perez Galdos, Leopold Alas, Federico De Bohento, Vicente Ibanez
?? Tolstoy, Dostoevesky, Turgenev, Chekhov
Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Maupassant, Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue, Emile Zola
?? Theodore Fontane, Guatav Freytag, Theodore Storm, Willem Raabe, Gerharg Hauptmann, Arno Holz
?? Henryk Sienkiewicz, Boleslaw Prus
?? Henry James, Mark Twain, Hermann Melville, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, Jack London
??Adalbert Stifter, Gottfried Keller
?? Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana, Grazia Deledda
?? Louis Couperous, Stijn Streuvels
?? Frans Emil Silanpaa, Juhani Aho

 

[Benny Profane]

?? Machado de Assis (despite I consider him as Modernist); João do Rio; Azevedo brothers (Arthur Azevedo and Aluísio Azevedo); Visconde de Taunay (Viscount of Taunay); Adolfo Caminha and others.

 

[Benny Profane]

?? A moviment called "Saudosismo" whose the most important figures were: Teixeira de Pascoes, Eça de Queiroz, Jaime Cortesão etc.

 

[Verkhovensky]

I used to dislike 19th century realism when I was younger, associating it with overlong novels consisting of numerous paragraphs describing irrelevant details such as interiors of a house. However, in the last years I "rediscovered" it and now I know I was too harsh with dissmissing that whole epoch.

My favourite realist works out of those that I have read:

by Balzac - a novella Sarrasine
by Flaubert - Sentimental Education
by Dostoevsky - Demons, obviously

I haven't yet read much from Tolstoy, Stendhal and Zola, so can't really comment about them. (The Red and the Black is marvelous, though). Read just a handful of Guy de M.'s stories.

Sienkiewicz unforutunately I didn't like and couldn't finish.

 

[The Common Reader]

by Dostoevsky - Demons, obviously

Why Demons, as opposed to, say, The Idiot, or The Brothers Karamazov? And why "Verkhovensky," as opposed to, say, Nastasya Filippovna or Alyosha?

 

[Verkhovensky]

Why Demons, as opposed to, say, The Idiot, or The Brothers Karamazov? And why "Verkhovensky," as opposed to, say, Nastasya Filippovna or Alyosha?

Because I haven't read them yet

And about the nick, it was simple, Demons was the last book I've read before I joined.

 

[The Common Reader]

Because I haven't read them yet

And about the nick, it was simple, Demons was the last book I've read before I joined.

In that case, happy reading!!!

 

[Ben Jackson]

Haven't read much of 19th Century realists yet, but I remember liking Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Bros Karamazovs, Moby Dick, Bras Cubas, Tess and Jude the Obscure and Count of Monte Cristo. Some of the finest novels I have ever read. It's true that some of the novels is too long and boring and filled with unnecessary descriptions (what Modernists skillfully avoided), but you can't overlook the quality of the text. Some Romantics can also be considered Realists, like Victor Hugo for example.