the rise of realism the civil war & post-war period 1850-1900
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The Rise of Realism
The Civil War & Post-War Period
1850-1900
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A Clash of Ideals• Both the North
and the South were motivated by a combination of ideology and their economic interests.
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A Clash of Ideals• Southerners
fought to uphold states’ rights and to defend the Southern way of life.
• Northerners fought to end slavery and to preserve the constitutional Union of the founders.
• Both fought to protect their economic interests
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Predicting the Future
• Ralph Waldo Emerson had for decades warned that this day would come if slavery was not abolished.
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Snapshot from the Civil War• Because rifle balls often shattered bones,
doctors were usually forced to amputate wounded soldiers’ arms or legs, often piling the limbs up on a cart outside the surgeon’s tent.
• Ignorant of hygienic science, surgeons frequently honed their scalpels on the soles of their boots, so infections in the field hospitals ran rampant.
• Alexander Fleming did not discover penicillin until 1928, so minor wounds could often be deadly.
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Eyes on the War• During the American
Civil War, photographs were the closest thing to newscasts. As a result, the Civil War became the first war to be fully documented in pictures.
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After the Civil War, Walt Whitman predicted that “a great literature will…arise out of the era of those four years.”
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Writing of the Time • There was little literary output during the war;
since then, however, it has generated over sixty thousands books and articles, written by scholars and historians, making it one of the most written-about wars in history.
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• The American Civil War (1861-1865) resulted in terrible blood-shed as the national government sought to preserve the Union by ending the secession of Southern states.
• Despite his firsthand experience of the aftermath of battle, Walt Whitman retained an optimistic view of the American character.
• But the horrors of war merely reinforced the pessimism of Herman Melville.
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• Very little important poetry and fiction issued directly from the Civil War, largely because few major American writers experienced the war firsthand.
• Direct accounts of the war found their way into other types of literature (letters, diaries, etc.).
• The “real war” would not find a place in American fiction until the development of the realist novel.
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What is Realistic Literature?
• A style of writing, developed in the 19th century, that attempts to depict life accurately without idealizing or romanticizing it.
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Local Color• Fiction and
poetry that focuses on the character’s dialect, customs, topography, and other features particular to a specific region.
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Smiling Realism• A portrayal of an
America where people may act foolishly, but where their good qualities eventually win out.
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Naturalism (1865-1900)
• A literary movement that is a stem of realism.
• Naturalists believed that one’s heredity and social environment determined one’s character.
• Naturalism attempts to determine scientifically the underlying forces influencing the actions of its subjects.