American Realism

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American Realism

• Introduction

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American Renaissance

• Walt Whitman
• Poet as prophet
• Spirit of exuberance
• Leaves of Grass (1855)
• Spirit of American democracy (minorities, gay
  rights)

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• Dead Poets' Society
• Dead poets Whitman, Thoreau
• Thoreau "I went to the woods because I wanted to
  live deliberately"
• Nature, Romanticism

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American Renaissance

• Building of the Suez canal
• "Passage to India" (Walt Whitman)
• Technological innovations

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Dark Renaissance

• Skepticism about progress
• Age of Imperialism
• Annexation of the Philippines, 1898
• Melville, Hawthorne, Poe negative aspects of
  science, human mind

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Civil War

• Breaking apart of the unity of the nation
• Traumatic countryman fighting against countryman

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Coming out of the War

• After the war belief in rationality
• Romanticism as idealizing, distorting reality
• Henry James, spirit of debate, rationality

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Whitman vs. James
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International Theme

• Americans compare themselves to Europe
• (James, Twain)
• Self-introspection

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Realism vs. Romanticism

• Romanticism/
• American Renaissance rose-colored vision
• Realism striving for objectivity

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George Bellows, "Dempsey and Firpo" (1924)
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• Ashcan school of painting
• Urban scenes
• Struggle for survival

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• Struggle for survival
• capitalism, industrialism
• Horatio Alger From rags to richtes

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Edward Hopper

• Realism, realistic landscape (New England)
• Sense of loneliness, alienation
• Industrialization (contrary to Whitman's
  exuberance)

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After Realism

• After realism "sordid realism" naturalism
• Women becoming prostitutes, men becoming beasts
• Ruthless capitalism