Between the Civil War and the First World War, realism was the
most prominent form of American fiction. Realist writers of the
period include some of America''s greatest, such as Henry James,
Edith Wharton and Mark Twain, but also many lesser-known writers
whose work still speaks to us today, for instance Charles Chesnutt,
Zitkala-?a and Sarah Orne Jewett. Emphasizing realism''s historical
context, this introduction traces the genre''s relationship with
powerful, often violent, social confli
目錄:
Introduction: American literary realism;
1. Literary precursors, literary contexts;
2. The ''look of agony'' and everyday middle-class life: three
transitional works;
3. Creating the ''odor'' of the real: techniques of realism;
4. Conflicting manners: high realism and social competition;
5. ''Democracy in literature''? Literary regionalism;
6. ''The blab of the pave'': realism and the city;
7. Crisis of agency: literary naturalism, the changing economy, and
''masculinity'';
8. ''Certain facts of life'': realism and feminism;
9. ''The unjust spirit of caste'': race and realism;
10. New Americans write realism; Conclusion: realisms after
realism; Further reading; Index.