III.

Literature

Realist literature is defined particularly as the fiction produced in Europe and the United States from about 1840 until the 1890s, when realism was superseded by naturalism. This form of realism began in France in the novels of Gustave Flaubert and the short stories of Guy de Maupassant. In Russia, realism was represented in the plays and short stories of Anton Chekhov. The novelist George Eliot introduced realism into English fiction; as she declared in Adam Bede (1859), her purpose was to give a “faithful representation of commonplace things.”Mark Twain and William Dean Howells were the pioneers of realism in the United States. One of the greatest realists of all, the Anglo-American novelist Henry James, drew much inspiration from his mentors, Eliot and Howells. James's concern with character motivation and behavior led to the development of a subgenre, the psychological novel.

In general, the work of these writers illustrates the main tenet of realism, that writers must not select facts in accord with preconceived aesthetic or ethical ideals but must set down their observations impartially and objectively. Concerned with the faithful representation of life, which frequently lacks form, the realists tended to downplay plot in favor of character and to concentrate on middle-class life and preoccupations, avoiding larger, more dramatic issues.