Realism and Naturalism were created as a response to Romanticism during the 19th century. They came about in France, which is unsurprising. The French viewed themselves as rationalists, and Romanticism clashed with their beliefs, and reasoning. Romanticism is heavily based on emotions, while Realism (and Naturalism) is based on rationalism, hence why they become big movements in France during the 19th century. Romanticism plays up on real life, adding drama and color that are like fluff, unneeded to a point. Realism was real life, it had no sugar coating, or added extreme emotions.
Balzac is considered one of the forefathers of realism. His first work was a series of novels that contrasted with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Balzac displayed all types of society in his work. He displayed a great attention to detail, in fact, he was obsessive. They were incredibly long as well, at this time books were the way to kill time. (instead of getting fat doing nothing but watching tv, they got fat reading books :p). His plots of his novels though, were leaning towards more romantic, than realistic.
Another “major player” was Flaubert, his work was more realistic than his predecessor. He began as a romanticist, but his friends encouraged him to write something “more down to earth”. He chose the story of an adulterous woman, his story was based on two real accounts and two real women. Like Balzac, he paid attention to detail, and did a lot of research. He even drew a map that detailed the town of his novel (which was based on a real town). The woman in the novel had two affairs and committed suicide, which may seem shocking to (most) modern readers, back than it was a tradition in French literature. What made it real, and different, is that Flaubert’s character’s affairs were not because of a romantic feeling (adultery was not justified in the least). The novel ended up being a anti-romantic manifesto. Flaubert returned to romanticism from time to time in his career.
“Aside from genre fiction such as fantasy and horror, we expect the ordinary novel today to be based in our own world, with recognizably familiar types of characters endowed with no supernatural powers, doing the sorts of things that ordinary people do every day. ” An every day man is going to be attracted to a book that he (or she) can pick up and say that it applies to me. Although, the everyday can be boring, and it can be said that some do seek novels that are more romantic than real.
Naturalism is not an extreme break from Realism, it is just an extension. “The term was invented by Émile Zola partly because he was seeking for a striking platform from which to convince the reading public that it was getting something new and modern in his fiction.” In other words he was selling a false product. The only difference between his work, and the work of his predecessors was that his extremely long detail was more integrated. “Zola’s novels do place special stress on the importance of heredity and environment in determining character. They are anti-Romantic in their rejection of the self-defining hero who transcends his background. History shapes his protagonists rather than being shaped by them. This leads to an overwhelming sense of doom in most of his novels, culminating in a final catastrophe. ” His protagonists weren’t heroes like those you see in romantic novels, they were the everyday man, shaped by the past. They didn’t do anything that could change history. His characters didn’t stand out, they just represented all parts of society in it’s norm. “Zola has had an enormous impact on the American novel. Americans with their preference for action over thought and for gritty realism were strongly drawn to his style of writing. ” (Of course. Americans love sex, blood, and violence).
Realism and Naturalism, there is no big difference between them. They are two peas in a pod. They have thankfully not destroyed Romanticism all together ( it would be boring reading the same stuff, we need novels that have Romanticism in them), but they have made a huge impact on literature and all other arts. The dislike of romanticism in the past, gave us a richer experience now.
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