What is Western Realism? What is Realist Literature

The basic characteristics of realist literature.

The basic characteristics of realist literature are: 1. Pay attention to the observation and experience of life, and strive to make the artistic description conform to the form, appearance and logic of real life in appearance and details; Second, pay attention to the application of typical methods, and strive to express the essence and laws of life through the details in artistic description; Third, writers generally do not express their feelings directly in their works, and the ideological tendencies of their works are relatively hidden.

The creative method of realism2006-10-25

A creative method that uses typical artistic images to truly reflect the true face of life. It is one of the most influential creative methods in the history of art, with strong vitality and greater inclusiveness, and its main characteristics are the truth of artistic description, the typical artistic image, and the tendency of thought and the concealment of feelings; In terms of expression, he uses simple artistic language, objective and realistic narration and description, and calmly and delicately portrays characters and events, thus constituting the external characteristics of realism.

The truth of the description of realism is manifested in the truth of the details, life is composed of countless details, the details are distorted, the artistic image will be distorted, imagination and fiction should also conform to the logic of Shengshi Lianghuo, the essence of life is dominant, and the artistic image lives according to its own logic rather than according to the artist's wishes.

The typical artistic image is mainly that art truly reflects the true face of life, not a mechanical description, but reveals the essence of life through the typical artistic image.

Any work has a certain ideological tendency, but the hidden nature of the expression of thoughts and feelings requires the artist not to express it directly and clearly, but to integrate into the image and naturally reveal it through the direct description of life.

When realism is concretely expressed, it presents diversity, changing with the changes of the times, each era has its own characteristics, realism has experienced ancient realism, critical realism, and socialist realism.

Realist literature is a type of literature that uses realistic forms to respond to images and forms, and expresses social reality and life experience through typical artistic generalizations. In the modern Qing Dynasty, realist literature emphasizes the depiction of real life, pays attention to objectivity and concreteness, and pursues the expression form of the works to be close to the reality of life.

Generally speaking, anything that can most fully express the typical characteristics of real life in the image is called a realist work. Generally speaking, realist works have three characteristics: First, the authenticity of details.

It is necessary to have a realistic description of details, and use historical and concrete pictures of life to reflect social life. Realist works infect people with the reality and concreteness of images, so they can make readers feel like they are in the situation and see them. The second is the typicality of the image.

Through typical methods, the real life materials are selected, refined, and summarized, so as to profoundly reveal some essential characteristics of life. It can be said that typification is the core of realism and the mark that distinguishes it from naturalism. The phenomena of life are complex and complex, and the truthful recording of life is nothing but the craft of a photographer; Realism requires the author to select meaningful characters and events from the rich and colorful real life, and create typical characters and typical environments through personalized and generalized artistic processing.

As Engels said, it is necessary to "realistically reproduce typical people in typical environments". The third is the objectivity of the specific description. Through an objective and specific description of real life, the author should naturally reflect the author's ideological tendencies and love-hate feelings from the scenes and plots of the work, rather than the author himself or the characters.

French literary historian Emile Faguet explains:"Realism is an artistic proposition that clearly and calmly observes human events and then depicts them clearly and calmly. ......It is necessary to select the most meaningful events from tens of thousands of real events, and then sort out these events to make them have a strong impression"This is the same as what Engels said"In addition to being true in detail, realism requires an honest representation of a typical person in a typical setting"The definition is basically the same.

If we do not understand realism simply as the reality inherent in all kinds of real art, but as a separate set of principles and artistic methods for character description, then in Western Europe, the formation of realism is generally considered to be in the Renaissance. From the realism of the Renaissance to the critical realism of the twenties of the nineteenth century, among which there is the realism of the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Renaissance realism is known for its vivid depiction of the vivid richness of feelings, desires and feelings of the characters, which shows the sublime of the human being, the completeness, purity and poetry of the characters' personalities.

Realist literature is the capitalist system of Western Europe.

A product of the period of establishment and development. In 1830 the "July Revolution" broke out in France, and from then on, the French bourgeoisie.

achieved dominance; In 1832, parliamentary reform was introduced, and the dominance of the British bourgeoisie was further consolidated. These two major political events marked the establishment of the capitalist system in Western Europe. Under the influence of British and French capitalist forces, European countries successively experienced a transition from feudalism.

A historic transition to a capitalist system. This specific social, political and economic situation has a direct impact on literature and has become a decisive factor in the formation and development of realist literature.

Realism focuses on faithfully reflecting real life and has a strong sense of objectivity. It advocates an objective and sober observation of real life, accurately and delicately describes it according to the original style of life, and strives to realistically reproduce typical people in typical environments. Since the beginning, the literature and art of various countries in the world have had the elements and characteristics of realism to varying degrees, and have developed and changed with the social and historical conditions.

In the field of literature and art, the two main tendencies of realism and romanticism have a long history. However, as a more self-conscious literary and artistic genre, realism usually refers to the dominance of romanticism in European literature and art after the 30s of the 19th century'A major literary and artistic trend and movement. Realism belongs to a writing technique of pure literature, which conforms to the characteristics of pure literature.

What is pure literature? It is the basic feature of pure literature to clean up the lies in the works such as the former chain political lies, the lies of Daohui and Qiaode, the lies of commercial lies, the lies of maintaining the class elites, and the lies of foolish people, so the most basic thing about realism is to exhaust the lies and objectively present real life and human characteristics, of course, this does not mean that realism cannot be fictional, on the contrary, to clean up the lies and express them objectively, we must borrow fiction and other artistic techniques, and fiction does not damage realism.

19th-century Western realist writers did not include Dante.

Famous realist writers of the 19th century include Stendhal (The Red and the Black), Balzac (The Human Comedy), Flaubert (The Human Comedy).

Madame Bovary"), Maupassant (Masterpiece: "Ball of Sheep"), Charlotte (Masterpiece: "Jane Eyre"), Dickens (Masterpiece:

Orphans of the Fog") and so on.

"Realism" as a creative technique is often used in parallel with romanticism, and the two go hand in hand.

Realism: It advocates reflecting life as it is, pursuing objectivity and authenticity. (outward).

Romanticism: Focusing on ideals and performance, advocating the use of exaggerated vocabulary, bold fantasies, bizarre plots, and extraordinary characters to express subjective ideals and personal feelings. (inward).

Development History:

In 1830, Victor Hugo's play Onani was staged, marking the decisive victory of Romanticism over Classicism.

The publication of Stendhal's The Red and the Black marked the birth of critical realism.

In the thirties of the 19th century, it was the tradition of realist literature that had preceded it, and it was at a time when Romanticism was in the ascendant, especially the inheritance and development of European Renaissance and Enlightenment literature, which also absorbed the writing experience of Romantic writers. Realism rose rapidly in France, Britain and other countries, and became the mainstream of European and American literature in the 19th century.

It was not until the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century that various new modernist literary schools began to emerge in the European literary scene, and the era of critical realist literature dominating came to an end.

19th-century Western realist writers did not include Dante.

19th-century American realist writers, including Mark Twain and Jack London.

Dante:

Dante Alichieri (1265-1321 AD), an Italian poet of the late 13th century, the founder of modern Italian, and one of the pioneers of the European Renaissance.

He is best known for his long poem The Divine Comedy (originally known as The Comedy), which was later named the Divine Comedy by a writer named Boccaccio. He is considered the greatest poet of the Italian Renaissance in the Middle Ages, one of the most outstanding poets of the West, and one of the greatest writers. Engels commented:

The end of the feudal Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern capitalist epoch were marked by a great man, Dante the Italian, the last poet of the Middle Ages and at the same time the first poet of the New Age".