Chapter Eight

The Age of Realism (came in the latter half of the 19thC following the Civil War)

Background:

1.       Labor force: After the Civil War, with the abolition of the slavery system, black slaves were set free. Great number of immigrants arrived, farmers moved to towns. Those provided enough labor force.

2.       Natural Resources: Petroleum was found in sizeable quantity.

3.       Transportation: railroads developed quickly.

4.       Advanced technology was applied.

As a result, the industrialization and mechanization were fully active, and they soon produced extremes of wealth and poverty. Wealth and power were more and more concentrated in the hands of the few (John. D Rockefeller--- petroleum tycoon). On the other hand, millions of people were struggling for survival. Beneath the glittering surface of prosperity there laid suffering and unhappiness. Disillusionment and frustration were widely felt.

   By the 1870s, with the New England losing its power, the Age of Realism had arrived, and became major trend in 1870s and 1880s.

Features of Realism:

1.       It expresses the concern for the world of experience, of the commonplace, for the familiar and the low.

2.       The Realism writers wrote about what they observed and knew. They believed that representation of life should be the main object of the novel, and offered an objective rather than an idealized view of human nature and experience.

3.       Realism reacts against Romanticism’s emphasis on intuition, imagination, a dreary sense of wonder, idealism, faith in nature and general optimistic belief in the goodness of things.

William Dean Howells     Henry James       Mark Twain

 William Dean Howells（豪威尔斯1837-1920）

(The most important realist, the champion of literary realism in America)

He was born in a small town in Ohio and brought up in humble surroundings. He was the first president of the American Academy of Arts and letters, once the editor-in-chief of the country’s most influential journal, The Atlantic Monthly. He wrote The Campaign Life of Abraham Lincoln, a book which helped Lincoln become elected and brought Howells recognition and an appointment as American Consul in Venice.

Literary ideas as a realist:

1.       Define realism as “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.

2.       Realism is the quest of the average and the habitual rather than the exceptional and the unique high or low. He preferred not to look upon man in his “heroic or occasional phases”, but to seek him in his habitual mood. Realism interprets “the common feelings of commonplace people

3.       He wrote about “this happy continent”, about the smiling aspect of America. In his mind, the main trend of America is “healthy, joyful, and happy.”

The Rise of Silas Lapham (赛拉斯•拉帕姆的发迹)

The Fall or Rise

The Fall and Rise….

Relates the story of a new upstart in mid-19^th-C in Boston. Lapham is a self-made man. He starts his paint business from the scratch, and becomes a millionaire. That is his material rise. Aspiring to conquer Boston upper-class society, he spends a lot of money on building a beautiful house in a “respectable” area of the town. One of his daughters falls in love with a young man of an upper class family, the Coreys. Later, as competition becomes keener, he is in danger of bankrupt. Then another company comes to offer a handsome sum of money to buy his property. If he accepts, he would survive, but the other owners would be forced out. If he refuses, he will go bankrupt. He decides to be honest. He falls and suffers, and the house is burnt down later. But he manages to keep a great number of people from suffering. Falling, he achieves his ethical “rise”.

Comment on the novel:

1.       Emphasis on ethics, stresses the need for sympathy and moral integrity and the need for different social classes to adapt to one another. (Coreys and Laphams overcame their prejudice and come together)

2.       Not approve of competitive economic individualism. (Lapham handles his partner Rogers roughly and has squeezed him out of business. He was in turn treated in the same way by his own rivals)

3.       Critical of the rise of materialism in American life. The burning down of the house represents the victory of his idealized view of man and society.

4.       The gorgeous house is a symbol of both his material success and his moral fall. (His wife declares that there is blood on its timber because of his rough treating of Rogers.

A Modern Instance （现代婚姻）

Henry James  (1843-1916)

Life:

He was born into a wealthy cultured family of New England. His family was so rich that neither son had to work for a living. So he was one of the few authors who did not have to worry about money. (To some extent, his family background decides his theme: he wrote about the wealthy, deep-rooted leisure class)

At a very early age, he was exposed to the cultural influence of Europe. ( In 1855, his family went to Europe and stayed there for three years.) In 1876, he settled down in London, and spent the rest of his life there. James was not married. He once loved his attractive cousin, who died young.

Literary views and contribution:

 1. As a realist, he holds that art must be related to life, the aim of the novel is to represent life. He advocates an immense increase of freedom in novel-writing and argues for inclusion of the disagreeable, the ugly and the commonplace. So he was one of the three staunch advocates of 19^th American realism.

2.He is considered the founder of psychological realism. He shifted the ground of realistic art from the outer to the inner world. We observe events and people filter through the consciousness of his characters. By emphasizing the inner awareness and inward movements of his characters in face of outside occurrence rather than merely portraying their environment in any detail, he became the first of the modern psychological analysts in the novel and anticipated in his works the modern stream-of-consciousness.

His major fictional theme:

1.       The international theme: His American characters (They all come from well-to-do family and do not have to work for a living, so they traveled to Europe) come to Europe, and encounter European culture in the form of European conventions. European were often over-refined (cultured, elegant ), degenerate and artificial by Americans. Americans were considered naïve, vulgar and ignorant. He presented the superiority of some of the values of the New World, made a contrast between American moral innocence, inexperience and the European social sophistication.

2.       His fictional world is peopled always by American heroes and heroines who, confronting European sophistication, either triumph over it or was overwhelmed.

3.       He wrote about the wealthy, deep-rooted leisure class, and became its spokesman.

The most famous two:

1. Daisy Miller （苔瑟•米勒 (misunderstanding causes personality conflicts)(a daughter of an American millionaire travels to Europe. She is cheerful, warm-hearted and innocent and therefore is misunderstood. She becomes subject of gossip because of her free and intimate manners with their guide. She is severely criticized because she goes openly about the street with young men, invites Italians to her hotel and refuses to be escorted in public by her mother.

2. The Portrait of a Lady （淑女画像）(American innocence caught in the traps of European duplicity) (Isabel, who succeeds to a large amount of legacy refuses the propose of an American millionaire Caspar, but gets married with an artist Osmond living in Italy. Later she finds that she is deceived. The artist marries her for the money, and their go-between is his mistress with whom he has an illegitimate daughter, Pansy. She returns to England. There she again meets Caspar and finally realizes that he is the one she loves. But she has promised Pansy to return to Italy, and she remembers her marriage vows and the child who has only her to look for protection. She rejects this last chance for happiness and rejoins her husband and step daughter.

The American（美国人）(Christopher Newman, a self-made millionaire leaves his business behind and goes to Europe in search of better cultivation of himself and of a wife of nobility. He is intelligent, good-looking and wealthy. Despite all these, he can not marry the girl he has chosen and he is even fooled by the family, because he is thought to be ignorant in the eyes of the family.who are very proud of their origin. Later he learns a secret of the family with which he can use to force them to accept the marriage. But, Newman decides not to do so, he is regarded as American model with his generosity.

The Ambassadors （专使）(a comedy of American and European manners, stresses mutual understanding and sympathy) (Stretcher, a middle-aged man is sent to Paris by a wealthy widow to take back her son who is so fascinated with European culture to return to America.. But Stretcher is eventually convinced that Paris is the place both for the young man and for himself, so he decides to stay in Paris without marrying the mother.

The Golden Bowl （金碗）

The Wings of the Dove （鸽翼）