Theoretical lessons: Wednesday
Analytical lessons/exercises: Tuesday
Backed up by textbooks (3 of them)
!! few changes will be made regarding the power points, so pay attention to 22-23 ones most
importantly
The iron heel (kind of questions) where the action of the novel starts? In which part of the US? Which
state? (San Francisco, California).
21/09:
Yellow slides: theory
Green: close readings
The definition of realism requires a lot of discussions (examples and counterexamples) but can still be
described. Art’s capacity to imitate the social world and art should have as mission to imitate the
social world. This is a belief that has been shared by lots of people of the years and taken for granted
by a lot of artists as far back as Antiquity (e.g., Aristotle). Mimesis is according to him the very
function of arts. Auerbach (German critic) affirms that realism has always existed in some forms, but
this imitation of reality took different forms at different period of time. He singles out Homer and
defines the kind of imitation of reality used by him and then uses gospel. Because this is a narrative
of deep seriousness involving characters of everyday life contrary to all the rest of ancient literature
where characters are aristocrats or high classes. He delivers a transhistorical definition of realism and
this was the dominant opinion of people interested in arts up the middle of the 20 th century. After
WWII an anti-realist movement took place. Objections are very interesting and arguing that it is an
enterprise that cannot be done because language does not function like that.
The two opposites attitudes towards mimesis are present in American literature. Realism and
Naturalism have been well represented in art and literature, this realism courant has given rise to
Henry James, John Dos Passos and many more.
S1.9: Movement: group of authors sharing the same program and sometimes meeting in the same
places to interact with one another. Publish their work by way of the same publisher too, etc.. It is an
historical reality which implies that the movement is defined chronologically and then it ended or
declined. (From mid-19th century for realism).
Mode: It is not so often used in academic fields. It is a kind of categorization established based on
given text to reality. It defines the type of relationship that text has with the real world. It is a certain
type of text that enjoys a certain type of relation with the real world. It is not limited in time the way
movement is.
(Realism as) Genre: it is one of the loosest terms used in literature. It designates almost any kind of
category. It is used based on various criteria, and it is difficult to describe, and it designates a certain
category, but the type of categorisation is very variable.
S1.10: the context is the industrial revolution, and this movement has evolved as a response to it.
The movement that preceded it is Romantism. The realist movement was a negative response to
romanticism.
S1.11: Realist Movement in France
The way the movement developed in France will be the model for the rest of the world including the
USA. There won’t be questions at the exam on this part (so the names are not so important to
remember). There are a lot of the descriptions of the settings in Balzac (+/- 10-15 pages). He thinks
that characters have to be described in their environment. Realistic depiction of environments that
are not the big cities: local colours depiction.
‘Variety’ can be used as a term instead of ‘genre’.
S1.12: