Characteristics Of Realism In English Literature

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In an age full of inventions, revolutions, and different literary movements, literature reaches its peak. Under this rapid development many problems appear with classifying the age, because of the great difference between the early works of the period and the late works. In the second half of the nineteenth century English literature did not draw only from the springs of the Art for Art’s Sake Movement, but also from French Realism and Naturalism. There was no longer the romantic idealism of the earlier part of the century. Realism is a literary movement characterized by the representation of people or things as they actually are. It often contrasted idealism. Realism started first in France in the 1850s as a response to both Neoclassicism
Like, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) who is known as an early master of the English realist novel and one of the most celebrated and most enduring novelists of all time. Dickens 's major novels include Oliver Twist (1838), David Copperfield (1850). Also, Jane Austen (1775-1817) who shared the chronological time with the Romantics, but she shares some of the features of Realism. She has a unique talent and cannot really be assigned to any group. Her novels Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Emma (1816) remain as popular and critically acclaimed as ever. And George Eliot (1819-1880), George Eliot is the pen name of Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans, who is one of the most outstanding novelists of English Realism. Eliot 's major works include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss
Adam Bede is an early example of the realism for which George Eliot became celebrated. Furthermore, George Eliot’s most famous justification of her realism comes in chapter 17 of Adam Bede. Eliot pauses her unfolding story to expand on this principle, urging artists not to focus only on ‘divine beauty of form’ but to ‘give the loving pains of a life to the faithful representing of commonplace things’, so as to help us all learn to accept and sympathies with our ‘fellow-mortals, every one . . . as they are.’ Because for Eliot realism is a philosophy rather than a literary style, it is compatible with this kind of met fictional interruption. Indeed, by prompting us to think about how a novel is written, rather than immersing us in its illusions, narrative intrusions can enhance the realistic effect. Adam Bede opens with just such a moment: ‘With this drop of ink at the end of my pen,’ says the

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