Realism vs Modernism: Literary Movements Defined

Realism: Representing Human Life

Realism is the creation of the effect of the representation of the concrete, historical nature of human life. It is the product and expression of the dominant mood of its time.

• It turned its back on the fantasies of Romanticism.
• It was shaped by the impact of political and social changes.
• It dealt with the scientific and industrial advances of its day.
• It provided a context for the examination of human values and fate.
• It appeared in a world not exclusively transformed or informed by spiritual presence.
• It emerged in a world of empirical thought and materialism during a time of rapid sociological change.

Some critics argue that realism in literature reflects a social reality whose phenomena serve as a model for the work of art; the realist gives a complete and correct account of observed social reality. Realism is faithful to our experience of life lived in a physical and social environment, utilizing the same language found in our ordinary daily lives.

Modernism: The Artistic Earthquake

Modernism is the movement that dominated the arts and culture of the first half of the twentieth century. It was an "earthquake" in the arts that dismantled much of the structure of pre-twentieth-century practice in music, painting, literature, and architecture.

Key Characteristics of Modernism

• Rejection of Tradition: Fundamental elements of practice were challenged and rejected, including a move away from traditional realism.
• High Modernism: The peak period occurred between 1910 and 1930.
• Technique: A preoccupation with the stream-of-consciousness technique.
• Narrative Shift: A movement away from omniscient external narration, fixed narrative points of view, and clear-cut moral positions.
• Structural Innovation: A blurring of genre distinctions, a liking for fragmented forms, discontinuous narrative, and random-seeming collages of disparate materials.
• Reflexivity: Poems, plays, and novels often raise issues concerning their own nature, status, and roles.
• Experimentation: Literature dedicated to constant innovation.