WEEK 8
• REALISM AND INDIVIDUALISM :
• THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN
AMERICA (1865-1900)
• -REGIONAL WRITING
• -LITERARY REALISM AND NATURALISM
CIVIL WAR
CIVIL WAR
The Civil War is the central event in America's historical
consciousness.
While the Revolution of 1776-1783 created the United
States, the Civil War of 1861-1865 determined what kind of
nation it would be.
The war resolved two fundamental questions left
unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States
was to be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states
or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national
government;
and whether this nation, born of a declaration that all men
were created with an equal right to liberty, would continue
to exist as the largest slaveholding country in the world.
Northern victory in the war preserved the United States as one
nation and ended the institution of slavery that had divided the
country from its beginning.
But these achievements came at the cost of 625,000 lives-nearly as many American soldiers as died in all the other wars
in which this country has fought combined.
The American Civil War was the largest and most destructive
conflict in the Western world between the end of the
Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the onset of World War I in 1914.
The Civil War started because of uncompromising
differences between the free and slave states over
the power of the national government to prohibit
slavery in the territories that had not yet become
states.
When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the
first Republican president on a platform pledging to
keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states
in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation,
the Confederate States of America.
The event that triggered war came at Fort Sumter in
Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861.
Claiming this United States fort as their own, the
Confederate army on that day opened fire on the
federal garrison and forced it to lower the American
flag in surrender.
Lincoln called out the militia to suppress this
"insurrection." Four more slave states seceded and
joined the Confederacy.
By the spring of 1865 all the principal
Confederate armies surrendered, and when
Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate
President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May
10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war
ended.
The long, painful process of rebuilding a united
nation free of slavery began.
REALISM (1860s – 1890s)
• life presented with fidelity
• fidelity in presenting the inner workings of the mind
• the analysis of thought and feeling
• function of environment in shaping the character
• set in present or recent past
• commonplace characters
• exposed political corruption, economic inequity, business
deception, the exploitation of labor, women rights problems,
racial inequity
• described the relationship between the economic
transformation of America and its moral condition
Why did Realism develop?
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Civil War
The urbanization and industrialization of America
As a reaction to Romanticism
Increasing rates of democracy and literacy
The emerging middle class
Upheaval and social change in the latter half of the 19th
century
What is Realism?
• A faithful representation of reality in literature, also known as
“verisimilitude.”
• Emphasis on development of believable characters.
• Written in natural vernacular, or dialect.
• Prominent from 1860-1890.
Characteristics of Realism
• Reaction against Romanticism and
Neoclassicism
• Factual is more important than the
intellectual or the emotional
• Treats nature objectively, but views it as
orderly
• Tells the stories of everyday people
• Use of details more important than plot
• In diction, seeks to use natural language
• Atheistic
• Life is driven by fate
Realist Writers
Mark Twain
William Dean Howells
Henry James
Edgar Lee Masters
Sarah Orne Jewett
REALISM
MARK TWAIN
Born on November 30, 1835, in Florida,
Missouri, Samuel L. Clemens wrote under the
pen name Mark Twain and went on to pen
several novels, including two major classics of
American literature, The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
He was also a riverboat pilot, journalist, lecturer,
entrepreneur and inventor. Twain died on April
21, 1910, in Redding, Connecticut.
Mark Twain can be seen as a Regional Writer
and a Realist Writer.
His popularity sky-rocketed with the
publications of The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the
Pauper (1882), and The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1885). By 1885, Twain was
considered one the greatest character writers
in the literary community.
Biography of Sarah Orne Jewett
Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909) was an American
novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or
near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her
day was a declining New England seaport.
Jewett possessed a keen descriptive gift that William Dean Howells called
"an uncommon feeling for talk — I hear your people." Jewett made her
reputation with the novella The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896). A
Country Doctor (1884), a novel reflecting her father and her early ambitions
for a medical career, and A White Heron (1886), a collection of short stories
are among her finest work.
Some of Jewett's poetry was collected in Verses (1916), and she also
wrote three children's books. Willa Cather described Jewett as a significant
influence on her development as a writer, and "feminist critics have since
championed her writing for its rich account of women's lives and voices."
Jewett never married; but she established a close friendship with writer
Annie Fields (1834-1915) and her husband, publisher James Thomas
Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
After the sudden death of James Fields in 1881, Jewett and Annie Fields
lived together for the rest of Jewett's life in what was then termed a "Boston
marriage.“
Some modern scholars have speculated that the two were lovers. In any
case, "the two women found friendship, humor, and literary
encouragement" in one another's company, traveling to Europe together
and hosting "American and European literati."
On September 3, 1902, Jewett was injured in a carriage accident that all
but ended her writing career.
She died three months after being paralyzed by a stroke in 1909.
The Georgian home of the Jewett family, built in 1774 overlooking Central
Square at South Berwick, is now a National Historic Landmark and Historic
New England museum called the Sarah Orne Jewett House.
We will read:
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras
County
A WHITE HERON.
“The Poet of the Inner-Soul”
• Emily Dickinson was born in 1830
and was destined to become one
of
the greatest poets of all time.
• Like many authors, Dickinson was
not known until after her death in 1886.
• She was, in fact, a very reclusive and quiet
woman who hardly ever left her home
town.
• The picture you see here is one of two
known photos of Emily.
“The Belle of Amherst”
• Amherst, Massachusetts was a quiet
New-England town when Emily was born
there.
• Amherst is now known for the very fine
Amherst College that is located there.
• As mentioned, Emily spent nearly her
entire life in Amherst.
• She has been called the “Belle of
Amherst.” A play about her is called by
that name.
21
Tending Her Garden
• To passersby, Emily was most frequently seen tending
her garden at the home she was raised in.
• Very few people knew that Emily Dickinson was secretly
writing poetry.
• Only a few people with whom she corresponded ever
saw any of her poems.
22
7 Poems
• During her lifetime, only seven poems of Emily
Dickinson’s were published.
• These, in fact, were poems that she had written to other
people who then had them published.
• It is not known if she even knew that any of her poems
had ever been published.
23
Possible Answers to the Mystery
• Emily’s sheltered life may have been the result of
the death of family members and friends.
• The more likely notion is that she had had some
failures in love.
• Even though she shut herself away from the world,
it is clear that she valued the few friends that she
had.
24
Failures in Love
• The question of Emily’s sexual feelings has
been a subject of a lot of recent writings.
• There were at least three men in her life that
could have “broken her heart.”
• But her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert, to whom
she wrote hundreds of letters, might have
also been a love interest.
• Though there is no proof of homosexuality, it
is easy to see why something like that, which
was so frowned upon in the 1800’s,could
have driven her into her private world.
25
Her Own Religion
• Not having “conventional” religious views may
have also contributed to Emily’s isolation.
• She refused to sign an oath to dedicate her life to
Jesus Christ and she dropped out of school.
• Even so, she clearly had a belief in God and
heaven, but it was different than the views held by
her peers.
26
Her Church was Nature
• In a well-known poem of hers, Emily says:
• Some keep the Sabbath going to ChurchI keep it, staying at HomeWith a Bobolink for a ChoristerAnd an Orchard, for a DomeSome keep the Sabbath in SurpliceI just wear my WingsAnd instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton-Sings.
God preaches, a noted ClergymanAnd the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at lastI'm going, all along.
• HENCE,SHE WAS SEEN AS A ROMANTIC
POET AS WELL AS REALIST POET
27
The Men In Emily’s Life
• Her father, a lawyer, to whom she was very
close was probably the model for what she
looked for in male friendship. His death was a
devastating loss.
• The first man was Benjamin Newton who
studied law under her father. He taught her to
see what was “good and beautiful” in nature
and encouraged her to write poetry.
28
Man #2
• She began a friendship with Charles Wadsworth of
Philadelphia. He was
married and they
corresponded regularly.
• He visited her twice.
• She called him her “dearest earthly friend.”
• In 1862, he moved to San Francisco, and she was
devastated.
• Soon afterwards, she withdrew from Amherst
society.
• Even her best friends rarely saw her unless it was
out working in her beloved garden.
29
Man #3
• The third man was the writer
Thomas Wentworth Higginson who
was known for encouraging younger
writers.
• She sent him a brief note with four of her
poems with the message:
• “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my
verse is alive?”
• He was fascinated and asked for more
poems.
30
Emily’s Home in
Amherst,
Massachusetts
The Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts
(bedroom)
The back of the Dickinson Homestead
showing the lawn and garden.
Her Poetry
• Emily probably wanted to have her
poems published but on her own terms,
and it seemed that publishers were
unwilling to take a risk with them—they
were very unconventional at the time.
• Higginson thought that Walt Whitman
(next) influenced her poems, but she said
that she never read his poetry because
she heard his poetry was “disgraceful.”
34
Her Own Style
• It seems that Emily invented her own style for
her poems.
• They have a sing-song quality and are similar, in
many ways, to the old ballads of the English and
Irish people.
• They often alternate between iambic tetrameter
and iambic trimeter.
• There is a gem-like depth of thought in her
simple lines.
• She knew what she wanted to say and was
precise in her ways of saying it.
35
Her “Letters to the World”
• Without a publisher, Emily kept on writing her
poetry privately.
• In one poems she calls them “my letters to the
world which never wrote to me.”
• She tied them up in little blue ribbons and hid
them away in drawers and boxes.
36
Emily’s Death in 1886
When Emily died, her
sister Lavinia was in
charge of Emily’s
estate.
Lavinia knew that
Emily wrote some
poems, but imagine
her surprise when she
started going through
Emily’s stuff.
37
Emily’s Legacy
• Emily Dickinson is now considered one of the greatest
American poets.
• Moreover, she is America’s first major female poet and
one of the first major female writers in all of Western
literature.
• Her “letters to the world” have finally found their
audience.
38
Obsession with Death
It is helpful in reading her poems about death to be aware of
two aspects of the Puritan tradition that persisted through
Dickinson’s day.
First, keeping watch at a deathbed was standard practice. Close
scrutiny of the process of dying, and of the corpse, was
considered a perfectly natural and healthy activity that
would advance the spiritual state of the spectator.
Second, in Dickinson’s time, there were many popular poems
describing death sentimentally and devotionally as a
difficult but ultimately redemptive passage to heaven.
From Emerson’s Nature:
Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.
“the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul”.
Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity
reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees
not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.
I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all;
the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;
I am part or particle of God.
Dickinson & Nature
Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest,
Her admonition mild
In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.
How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon,-Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down
Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.
When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky
With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.
The Spider as an artist
THE SPIDER as an artist
Has never been employed
Though his surpassing merit
Is freely certified
By every broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian land.
Neglected son of genius,
I take thee by the hand.
NATURE rarer uses yellow
Than another hue;
Saves she all of that for sunsets,—
Prodigal of blue,
Spending scarlet like a woman,
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover’s words.
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides-You may have met him? Did you
not
His notice instant is--
Have passed I thought a Whip
Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone--
The Grass divides as with a
Comb-A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on--
Several of Nature's People
I know and they know me-I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality--
He likes a Boggy Acre
A Floor too cool for Corn Yet when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon
But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.
REGIONALISM
Why did Regionalism develop?
• Dual influence of Romanticism and Realism
• The Civil War and the building of a national identity
• An outgrowth of realism with more focus on a particular
setting and its influence over characters
What is Regionalism?
• Often called “local color.”
• Focuses on characters, dialect, customs, topography, and
other features specific to a certain region (eg. the South)
• Coincided with Realism and sharing many of the same traits.
• Prominent from 1865-1895.
Regionalist Writers
Kate Chopin—South
Mary E. WilkinsFreeman—New
England
Mark Twain—West
Willa Cather—Midwest
Why did Naturalism develop?
• The swell of immigrants in the latter half of the 19th
century, which led to a larger lower class and
increased poverty in the cities
• The prominence of psychology and the theories of
Sigmund Freud
• Pessimism in the wake of the Civil War and
Reconstruction
• Publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the
Species
What is Naturalism?
• Applied scientific principles of objectivity and
detachment to the study of human beings.
• Influenced by Darwinism (natural selection) and
psychology (Freud)
• Posited that men were governed by heredity and
environment.
• Often depict man in conflict with nature, society, or
himself.
• Prominent from 1880-1920(ish)
Distinctions of Naturalism
• Views life from a deterministic, mechanistic point
of view.
• Makes people the subjects of scientific case
studies.
• Tone is often coldly scientific.
• Uses great masses of details; their informal
arrangement reflects the chaotic state of society
and nature.
• In diction, sometimes seems to seek out the ugly
word for its own sake.
• Likely to present nature as chaotic.
• Studies society dispassionately to correct the evils
found there.
• Drops artificial concepts of plot and action for a
"slice of life."
• Main characters are usually low on the social
scale; often morally frail
Naturalist Writers
Stephen Crane
Ambrose Bierce
Jack London
Edwin Arlington
Robinson
Katherine Anne Porter
Charlotte Perkins
Gilman
Edith Wharton
Points to Remember…
• Realism, Regionalism, and Naturalism are intertwined and
connected.
• Their influence has dominated most literature created since
1920, though the movement itself is dated to roughly that
point.
• They are truly American modes of writing.