1865 - 1910
Realism - The attempt in literature and art to represent life as it really is, without sentimentalizing or idealizing it. Realistic writing often depicts the everyday life and speech of ordinary people. There was a shift from Romanticism to Realism.
Tenets of Realism:
 | Less emphasis on imagination and more on FACT. |
| Shift from human potentialities to human actualities. |
| Viewing every aspect of life scientifically, including human behavior.
Writers wanted to MIRROR LIFE. |
William Dean Howells once remarked: "Nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material." He explained that the writer's responsibility was to be an accurate observer and reporter of life around him.
Regionalism - After the Civil War, writers often identified with a
particular place or region of the United States. This is also known as the
local color movement because of the focus on distinctive speech patterns
and dialects, local customs (folkways), and character types (ex. Western gold
miner, New England farmer, etc.).
Major writers of this period:
| Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Pudd'nhead
Wilson, Life on the Mississippi. |
| Willa Cather - My Antonia |
| Stephen Crane - The Red Badge of Courage (short stories -
Naturalism) |
| Jack London - White Fang, The Call of the Wild (Naturalism) |
| Kate Chopin - The Awakening |
| Paul Laurence Dunbar - poet (from Dayton, Ohio) |
| Edgar Lee Masters - Spoon River Anthology |
