Realism: themes and genres

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The appearance of Realism cultural movement It occurred in the mid-nineteenth century as a reaction to the Romanticism that had been prevalent for years to come. What the realists were looking for was to get away from that halo of fantasy and that subjective tone that romantics inserted into reality to simply show the world as it was in an objective and sincere.

It is for this reason that, during this time, some important changes were carried out in the aesthetics and in the literary object. In a PROFESSOR we are going to show you the themes and genres of literary realism so that, in this way, you can better understand some of the most striking characteristics of this artistic and cultural movement.

Index

1. Brief introduction to Realism
2. Literary Genres of Realism
3. The themes of Realism and naturalism

Before entering fully into what were the themes and genres of Literary Realism, it is important that we understand slightly where this new change in culture and literature comes from. It is relevant to understand that the origin of

In this plane of technological, scientific and social evolution, reason began to gain ground from others engines that, until now, the arts had predominated: faith, mysticism, fantasy, emotions, etc. Now we are in the Age of Enlightenment, a century in which nature ceases to be a source of bucolic inspiration to become a scientific research source.

Due to this profound change of prism and perspective, the authors began to promote a new literature that became known as Realism and that claimed observe reality to learn from it. Therefore, the book or the work of art stopped being something dreamlike and subjective to become, something like that, as a laboratory, a place in which to observe reality, observe man and better understand our world.

All the changes that took place during the Enlightenment era were clearly reflected in the literature. New themes and genres of Literary Realism appeared that broke with previous norms and created new artistic bases on which to create this new world that was about to be born.

The lyric, predominant genre during the previous centuries, began to be cultivated less and, on the contrary, it was given a greater importance to the novel and the narrative. The reason was that literature stopped being only an artistic or aesthetic object to become an ideal space to intervene in society and its inhabitants.

Therefore, within the literary genres of Realism we must highlight the novel as the most cultivated and the favorite of the authors who followed this trend. These novels used to treat contemporary issues and, in this way, they got readers to be witnesses of their present and that, thus, they could better understand the world in which they lived.

Another reason why the novel became the most used genre in Literary Realism was because, thanks to the fact that the extension can be unlimited, it allowed the author dwells on the matters he believed to be important. Therefore, he could relate events that occurred in the present, describe in a long and lengthy way the spaces in which they are develop the action, analyze the personality of each character and show different ideological and political positions, etc. As we have already said before, Realism conceived of literature as a medium in itself: the author who wrote was carrying out something like a scientific investigation of reality. Therefore, the narrative text was his own laboratory, his operating table.

Characteristics of the realist novel

• Omniscient narrator: it is common for novels belonging to literary realism to have a third-person narrator who is not involved in the plot. In this way, he offers an objective and "real" vision of the events that are being narrated.
• Descriptions abundants: is another of the best known characteristics of the Realism novels and it is that the writers stopped for several sentences to place the reader in the space in which he was. Therefore, descriptions of landscapes are very abundant, but also descriptions of the characters, both internally and externally.
• Clarity and simplicity: realist authors did not want to demonstrate their great talent or erudition (as it did in the Modernism, for example), they only wanted to reflect reality and, in this way, know it best. They had a scientific vision of the world and of literature, therefore, the texts have a simple, clear and understandable style by the vast majority of readers. As Galdós said, "The novel is the image of life."
• Scientific method: As we have already said, the writer was like a kind of "scientist" and, therefore, in order to carry out his literary work, he followed the method scientist who was so successful in the Enlightenment, that is, he observed reality, took data about it, documented himself and, later, wrote his conclusions.
• Moral purposeThe truth is that, although realistic novels want to be an objective reflection of reality, all of them hide behind ideological positions and moralistic reflections about society. Characters are presented who are "punished" in the plot in order to communicate to the readers what are the best behaviors that should be carried out in the social nucleus.
• Characters: Normally, in these novels they tend to present characters that are not treated individually, but basically, they embody different types of people who lived in the city. Therefore, the characters that appear in the novels can be considered as belonging to a social painting that shows us different inhabitants who were part of the reality of the epoch.

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Now that we know what the genres are, we are going to talk about the remas of Realism since, due to the change of course that society gave, the themes that interested artists and the general public took new directions.

Basically, the themes of Realism began to be themes that they concerned the society of the time. That is, they were contemporary and current issues, close to both the artist and the readers. In this way, it was possible to better understand reality and offer the moral example that the vast majority of authors showed.

Realistic novel themes

But let's take a closer look at the prevailing themes of this era. Here we offer you a complete list of those most relevant and most common among realistic writers.

• Present: while in Romanticism the authors focused on remote times such as the Middle Ages or the classical, the realists looked back to their time and offered novels that were set in their Present. Therefore, the topics that were discussed were much more everyday and of situations that took place in the society of the time.
• The man: Another of the themes of Realism that had great importance was the study and understanding of man. Understanding the behavior of people, their personality, their fears, their defects, their virtues, etc., was something that was very present during this period. The fantasy and mysticism of Romanticism was abandoned to give way to works that spoke of human beings and their social context.
• Social conditions: Another issue was the denunciation of the social structures that existed in the cities. Realism, due to its objective description of reality, demonstrated the existence of strong inequalities between people in the same city. Therefore, many of the texts of the time focused on analyzing the differences between the noble, middle and working classes, denouncing the great discrimination and inequality.
• Vindictive texts: many of the realistic novels ended up having a vindictive tone since, thanks to this direct observation of In reality, injustices and bad practices that had been committed in society for many years came to light. For this reason, the idea of ​​wanting to generate a useful art began to be very strong towards the second half of the 19th century when the writer no longer sought to create beauty but to launch truths.

As you can see, the themes and genres of Literary Realism were very different during this time due to the great changes that took place at the social level. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution led society to become more rational and for man and his reality to occupy the center of thought.

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