Characteristics of Romantic Literature:
Characteristics of Realist Literature:
o Themes: Highly
imaginative and subjective; Emotional intensity; Escapism; Common man
as hero; Nature as refuge, source of knowledge and/or spirituality
o Characters and setting set apart from society; characters were not of our own conscious kind
o Static characters--no development shown
o Characterization--work proves the characters are what the narrator has stated or shown
o Universe is mysterious; irrational; incomprehensible
o Gaps in causality
o Formal language
o Good receive justice; nature can also punish or reward
o Silences of the text--universals rather than learned truths
o Plot arranged around crisis moments; plot is important
o Plot demonstrates: romantic love, honor and integrity, idealism of self
o Supernatural foreshadowing (dreams, visions)
o Description provides a "feeling" of the scene
o Slave narrative: protest; struggle for authors self-realization/identity
o Domestic (sentimental): social visits; women secondary in their circumstances to men.
o Female gothic: devilish childhood; family doom; mysterious foundling; tyrannical father.
o Women's
fiction: anti-sentimental heroine begins poor and helpless, heroine
succeeds on her own character, husbands less important than father
Characteristics of Realist Literature:
o Emphasis on psychological, optimistic tone, details, pragmatic, practical, slow-moving plot
o Rounded, dynamic characters who serve purpose in plot
o Empirically verifiable
o World as it is created in novel impinges upon characters. Characters dictate plot; ending usually open.
o Plot=circumstance
o Time marches inevitably on; small things build up. Climax is not a crisis, but just one more unimportant fact.
o Causality built into text (why something happens foreshadowed). Foreshadowing in everyday events.
o Realists--show us rather than tell us
o Representative people doing representative things
o Events make story plausible
o Insistence on experience of the commonplace
o Emphasis on morality, usually intrinsic, relativistic between people and society
o Scenic representation important
o Humans are in control of their own destiny and are superior to their circumstances
·
No comments:
Post a Comment