Realism and Naturalism in 19th-Century Literature and Art

Definition of Realism and Naturalism

The Romantic movement was relatively short and is usually considered to have ended around 1850. Several factors that became influential after 1850 contributed to the decline of Romanticism and led to the gradual replacement of the Romantic value system with a new conception of the world and of art.

In summary, we can point out the following distinctive features of the new movement:

Distinctive Features

• It requires the spirit of observation and the description of reality.
• The new movement prefers to stick to surrounding reality and to reflect it as objectively and impersonally as possible.
• The new movement seeks to report empirical data that can be demonstrated scientifically.

In the new course that begins in literature and Western art after 1850, two trends are distinguished which, although they have a common origin and share the same intention, also differ in some respects. These two trends are Realism and Naturalism.

Realism

Realism in literary history is a movement that spans the entire second half of the nineteenth century and originated in France with novelists such as Stendhal, Flaubert, and Balzac. Against Romantic reveries, Realism sought to depict objective reality as the product of a new society (the bourgeoisie), a new philosophy (positivism), and the prominence of the Industrial Revolution.

Naturalism

Naturalism is an extreme representation, sometimes unpleasant, of reality. It developed in the last third of the nineteenth century and is based on an intensification of the techniques of Realism and positivism together with a dependence on scientism. Naturalists sought to apply to literature—especially the novel—scientific methods and empirical analysis drawn from biology, physics, and medicine.

Argument Structure

The argument generally follows this structure:

• Thesis: the opinion or main idea whose validity we want to justify.
• Development (body of the argument): presentation of reasons or arguments (data, quotes from authorities, examples) used to support the thesis. Each argument is usually introduced by a connector (for example: first, second).
• Conclusion: restates the thesis and may add any idea that can be deduced from the arguments.