Realism and Henry James Essay -- essays research papers fc

Realism, in the broadest of definitions, is the faithful take onation of reality or verisimilitude. The realist is considered to be the philosophic extrovert . Within the scope of American literature, naive realism spans the time layover from the Civil War to the turn of the century. Some claim that American realism was the product of a country shaken by war feature with technological advances and increased consciousness of nationhood. Realism, according to Weinberg, denies the continuum of time as meaty dimension of experience because time can non be seen or touched . In essence, realism was a solution to the problem of the past. It made a religious belief out of newness and contemporaneity . However, some critics of realism have criticized it as having been undecided as an insidious agent of the capitalistic-imperialistic-bourgeois hegemony .The advent of realism was much apprehended by writers everywhere for it was a solvent to the changing cultural needs. William doyen Howells, Mark Twain and Henry pack are few of the pioneers of American realism. With time, Howells abandoned the idea of the past and worked solely in the representation of American heart. Twain, however, was in a limbo between his bonds with the past and a ensure to the present. At this time it was throng, who reconciled the ties of history and with an intellectual commitment to the present. James wrote The subterfuge of Fiction in 1884 in a critical response to Walter Besants lecture on the same topic. Jamess fundamental aim in this critique was to critically analyze Besants thoughts on prevarication whilst putting forward what he believed the art and form of fiction to be. James contends that fictional writing is the representation of real life. In The Art of Fiction he claims that a novel is a proof of life and curiosity . At another point in this discourse he writes, The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life . This is synonymo us with the definition of realism that I have verbalize above which claims that realism in literature is the representation of life. In the essay, James highlights the basis, which he believes, are essential for a piece of fiction to suffer art. According to him, a piece of fiction should be informative and should not carry with it the load of moral judgments or analysis. The characters and their psychological process should... ...r, Everett. "William dean Howells Theory of Critical Realism." ELH 16 (1949) 151-166.     Crowley, John W. "The Portrait of a madam and The Rise of Silas Lapham The Company They Kept." (n.d.) 117-134.     Dicovery of a Genius William Dean Howells and Henry James. Ed. Albert Monrdell. parvenue York Twayne, 1961.     James, Henry. "The Art of Fiction." Longmans Magazine (1884).      James, Henry. What Maisie Knew. New York, 1909.    & nbspPizer, Donald. "Late Nineteenth-Century American Realism An show in Definition." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 16 (1961) 263-269.     Rouse, H. Blair. "Charles Dickens and Henry James two Approaches to the Art of Fiction." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 5 (1950) 151-157.     Salomon, Roger B. "Realism as Disinheritance Twain, Howells andJames." American every quarter 16 (1964) 531-544.     Weinberg, Bernard. French Realism The Critical Reaction, 1830-1870. (Oxford, 1937) pp. 122-123.