Monday, March 2, 2015

Realism vs. Romanticism

Realism .vs. Romanticism
 Characteristics of Romantic 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