The Rise of Realism: Influences and Characteristics

Realism emerged from Romanticism in the second half of the nineteenth century. Romanticism had led to the exaltation of the ideals of individual freedom and subjectivity. After an intense period, the need for reflection began to assert itself, and individualism gave way to an interest in social analysis. This shift was driven by specific social and scientific developments. Although Realism contrasted with Romanticism, it also developed some of its artistic aspects, such as the focus on customs and interest in nature. Realist works aimed to provide a faithful testimony of contemporary society and offer a critical review of it.

Key Factors Shaping the Emergence of Realism

Social Aspects

• Industrial and Commercial Expansion: Industrialization led to a new distribution of social classes, causing excessive growth of the proletariat and the rise of a bourgeois class. Significant urban population growth occurred. It also represented a change in trade relations systems, leading to an extension of international trade. Colonial expansion began, involving both the domination of large raw material-producing areas and the opening of new markets. The spread of industry and commercial developments contributed to the extension of the railway.
• Strong Social Tensions: The situation of the proletariat led to workers' struggles, organized around socialism (e.g., The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, 1848) and anarchism.
• The New Bourgeois Reader and Publishing Influence: The new readership belonged to the bourgeoisie, who rejected idealistic and fantastic narratives, demanding stories about the everyday and real. Furthermore, writers worked for publishers and newspapers, where success depended on public acceptance of their published works. This significantly conditioned the writer's approach.
• Strengthening of Bourgeois Power: The strengthening of bourgeois power, in order to support and defend its conquests, led to conservative political positions. Examples include the governments of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III in France, Queen Victoria (1837-1901) in England, Bismarck's strong government in Prussia, and the restored monarchy of Alfonso XII (1874) in Spain.

Scientific Aspects

• Experimentalism: The French physician and physiologist Claude Bernard (1813-1878) introduced the experimental method, which begins with a hypothesis guiding the research. This method embraced determinism—the certainty that every event is predetermined by material conditions and fixed laws. Naturalism, in particular, adopted both experimentation and determinism.
• Evolutionism: In On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin proposed the theory of species evolution based on natural selection (adaptation to the environment and survival of the fittest) and the struggle for life.
• Theories of Heredity: Gregor Mendel announced his laws of inheritance in 1865, based on his research on plants.