I. Three Giants in Realistic Period

1. William Dean Howells – “Dean of American Realism”

(1) Realistic principles

a. Realism is “fidelity to experience and probability of motive”.

b. The aim is “talk of some ordinary traits of American life”.

c. Man in his natural and unaffected dullness was the object of Howells’s fictional representation.

d. Realism is by no means mere photographic pictures of externals but includes a central concern with “motives” and psychological conflicts.

e. He condemns novels of sentimentality and morbid self-sacrifice, and avoids such themes as illicit love.

f. Authors should minimize plot and the artificial ordering of the sense of something “desultory, unfinished, imperfect”.

g. Characters should have solidity of specification and be real.

h. Interpreting sympathetically the “common feelings of commonplace people” was best suited as a technique to express the spirit of America.

i. He urged writers to winnow tradition and write in keeping with current humanitarian ideals.

j. Truth is the highest beauty, but it includes the view that morality penetrates all things.

k. With regard to literary criticism, Howells felt that the literary critic should not try to impose arbitrary or subjective evaluations on books but should follow the detached scientist in accurate description, interpretation, and classification.

(2) Works

a. The Rise of Silas Lapham

b. A Chance Acquaintance

c. A Modern Instance

(3) Features of His Works

a. Optimistic tone

b. Moral development/ethics

c. Lacking of psychological depth

2. Henry James

(1) Life

(2) Literary career: three stages

a. 1865~1882: international theme

 The American

 Daisy Miller

 The Portrait of a Lady

b. 1882~1895: inter-personal relationships and some plays

 Daisy Miller (play)

c. 1895~1900: novellas and tales dealing with childhood and adolescence, then back to international theme

 The Turn of the Screw

 When Maisie Knew

 The Ambassadors

 The Wings of the Dove

 The Golden Bowl

(3) Aesthetic ideas

a. The aim of novel: represent life

b. Common, even ugly side of life

c. Social function of art

d. Avoiding omniscient point of view

(4) Point of view

a. Psychological analysis, forefather of stream of consciousness

b. Psychological realism

c. Highly-refined language

(5) Style – “stylist”

a. Language: highly-refined, polished, insightful, accurate

b. Vocabulary: large

c. Construction: complicated, intricate

3. Mark Twain (see next section)