Realism

A clear, reader-friendly guide to debates around realism, this guide is vital reading for students of literature, in particular those working on the realist novel.

Coming to prominence with the nineteenth-century novel, literary realism has most often been associated with the insistence that art cannot turn away from the more sordid and harsh aspects of human existence. However, because realism is unavoidably tied up with the gnarly concept of 'reality' and 'the real', it has been one of the most widely debated terms in the New Critical Idiom series.
This volume offers a clear, reader-friendly guide to debates around realism, examining:
*ideas of realism in nineteenth-century French and British fiction
*the twentieth-century formalist reaction against literature's status as 'truth'
*realism as a democratic tool, or utopian form.
This volume is vital reading for any student of literature, in particular those working on the realist novel.

SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, Introduction: What Is Realism?, PART I REALISM VERSUS EXPERIMENTALISM?, PART II LITERARY REALISM: AN INNOVATIVE TRADITION, PART III LITERARY REALISM AS FORMAL ART, PART IV REALISM AND KNOWLEDGE: A UTOPIAN PROJECT?, GLOSSARY, SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX