Post-Civil War
 Literature prior to the Civil War was
Romantic literature. Practitioners of the
imaginative, fantastical, and nature-loving
Romantic literature included Irving, Poe,
Dickinson, and Hawthorne.
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 This era in American literature reflected the
newness of the nation and its amazing
potential.
 Even the Dark Romantics, like Poe and
Hawthorne, created imagery that reflected
the faith Americans had in the promise of a
new country, while also acknowledging that
man is bent to darkness.
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 After 4 years of war between
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Americans, literature began to
reflect the chilling effects the war
had on the American psyche.
 No longer was there a mood of
optimism and potential.
 Instead, literature reflected that
man was harsh, and nature was
unconcerned with aiding man in
his struggle for survival.
 However, post-war America was
expanding and the frontier, the
gold rush, and the opportunities
for women were beginning to
change the American psyche.
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 Industrialization
 Immigration
 Rise of the middle class
 Interest in scientific inquiry
 Rise of rational philosophy
 Focus on the immediate, the real, the present
 Emphasis on presentation of what is real
 Character more important than plot
 Class is important
 Avoid the sensational
 Diction is vernacular, not poetic
 May be satirical or matter-of-fact, but never imaginative
 Objectivity important
 The individual’s struggle and reaction to the struggle is prominent
 Objective narrator
 Ambrose Bierce
 Bierce defined realism in his The Devil’s
Dictionary as:
 “Realism, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen
by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted
by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.”
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 Realism is further divided into regionalism and local
color
 Focuses on particular areas of the United States
 Regionalism focuses on the influence of setting, whereas
local color focuses on the foibles of the characters
 Regionalism is aware of the limitations imposed on
characters by setting
 Local color is aware of the influence of setting on
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character—dialect, personality traits associated with
region, dialect, cultural mores. It is usually humorous
and/or satirical.
 Mark Twain
 Bret Harte
 Kate Chopin
 Extreme form of realism
 Forces beyond control of humans
 Free will is an illusion
 Humans are acted upon by nature
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 Stephen Crane
 Jack London