Literary playing fields in motion
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Dirk Göttsche
Abstract
This chapter suggests avenues for a critical remapping and rereading of the supposedly well-known core phase of literary realism in the mid- to late nineteenth century, from the 1840s to the early 1900s, with timelines depending on language area. Building on “Routes into Realism,” this core essay and the associated case studies move beyond traditional linear conceptions of literary history, reconceptualizing realism as a multi-stranded and multi-phased dynamic embracing Europe’s language areas in a complex and polyphonous landscape of joint concerns and shared modes of representation, but also diverse voices and productive tensions that create a multidimensional set of playing fields (Spielräume) in motion. Considering a full range of literatures, the chapter explores the diversity of realism within and across languages; interactions between realism and romanticism, naturalism and modernism that question traditional periodization; and the dialogue between different national and transnational strands of realism. Specific themes include the intrinsic links between realism, modernization and nation-building; gender and the family; transcultural dialogue and the development of realist style; the postcolonial rereading of realist literature; and reading beyond the established canon and across genres, media and discourses, including science.
Abstract
This chapter suggests avenues for a critical remapping and rereading of the supposedly well-known core phase of literary realism in the mid- to late nineteenth century, from the 1840s to the early 1900s, with timelines depending on language area. Building on “Routes into Realism,” this core essay and the associated case studies move beyond traditional linear conceptions of literary history, reconceptualizing realism as a multi-stranded and multi-phased dynamic embracing Europe’s language areas in a complex and polyphonous landscape of joint concerns and shared modes of representation, but also diverse voices and productive tensions that create a multidimensional set of playing fields (Spielräume) in motion. Considering a full range of literatures, the chapter explores the diversity of realism within and across languages; interactions between realism and romanticism, naturalism and modernism that question traditional periodization; and the dialogue between different national and transnational strands of realism. Specific themes include the intrinsic links between realism, modernization and nation-building; gender and the family; transcultural dialogue and the development of realist style; the postcolonial rereading of realist literature; and reading beyond the established canon and across genres, media and discourses, including science.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- List of illustrations xiii
- Editors’ preface and acknowledgments xv
- Note on translations, cross-references and documentation xvii
- Introduction 1
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Chapter 1. What is realism?
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Core essay
- What is realism? 31
-
Case studies
- The contest of realism 65
- How real is realism? 81
- The emergence of the novel in India and competing modes of realism 89
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Chapter 2. Routes into realism
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Core essay
- Routes into realism 103
-
Case studies
- Routes into realism 191
- Routes into American realism 213
- Realism and translation 231
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Chapter 3. Time and space
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Core essay
- Fleeting moments and unstable spaces 247
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Case studies
- Cartographic realism in nineteenth-century literature 321
- Mobile spaces 337
- Reclaiming space, mastering time in African postcolonial fiction 357
- Utopian island realism in J. M. Synge’s travel narrative of The Aran Islands and Tomás O’Crohan’s autobiography The Islander 373
- In-between spaces in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore 387
- Haptic realism 403
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Chapter 4. Rereading nineteenth-century realism
-
Core essay
- Literary playing fields in motion 417
-
Case studies
- The French debate about Gustave Courbet’s pictorial realism and the dialogue between literature and art in the mid-nineteenth century 489
- Russian families, accidental and other 503
- The benefit of reading marginal forms 515
- Madame Bovary in Italy 531
- Eça and Machado 551
- Zola, realism and naturalism in late nineteenth-century Greece 565
- The polyphony of late nineteenth-century Baltic realism 577
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Chapter 5. Post-1900 transformations of realism
-
Core essay
- Straw man or profligate son? 599
-
Case studies
- Realism across borders 697
- Realism in play 715
- Realism and postcolonial subjectivity in the Black British Bildungsroman 735
- The rise and fall of socialist realism 751
- Realism in Anglo-American crime fiction 761
- Biographical fiction’s challenge to realism 775
- Notes on contributors 793
- Index 801
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- List of illustrations xiii
- Editors’ preface and acknowledgments xv
- Note on translations, cross-references and documentation xvii
- Introduction 1
-
Chapter 1. What is realism?
-
Core essay
- What is realism? 31
-
Case studies
- The contest of realism 65
- How real is realism? 81
- The emergence of the novel in India and competing modes of realism 89
-
Chapter 2. Routes into realism
-
Core essay
- Routes into realism 103
-
Case studies
- Routes into realism 191
- Routes into American realism 213
- Realism and translation 231
-
Chapter 3. Time and space
-
Core essay
- Fleeting moments and unstable spaces 247
-
Case studies
- Cartographic realism in nineteenth-century literature 321
- Mobile spaces 337
- Reclaiming space, mastering time in African postcolonial fiction 357
- Utopian island realism in J. M. Synge’s travel narrative of The Aran Islands and Tomás O’Crohan’s autobiography The Islander 373
- In-between spaces in Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore 387
- Haptic realism 403
-
Chapter 4. Rereading nineteenth-century realism
-
Core essay
- Literary playing fields in motion 417
-
Case studies
- The French debate about Gustave Courbet’s pictorial realism and the dialogue between literature and art in the mid-nineteenth century 489
- Russian families, accidental and other 503
- The benefit of reading marginal forms 515
- Madame Bovary in Italy 531
- Eça and Machado 551
- Zola, realism and naturalism in late nineteenth-century Greece 565
- The polyphony of late nineteenth-century Baltic realism 577
-
Chapter 5. Post-1900 transformations of realism
-
Core essay
- Straw man or profligate son? 599
-
Case studies
- Realism across borders 697
- Realism in play 715
- Realism and postcolonial subjectivity in the Black British Bildungsroman 735
- The rise and fall of socialist realism 751
- Realism in Anglo-American crime fiction 761
- Biographical fiction’s challenge to realism 775
- Notes on contributors 793
- Index 801
