“Memories inwrought with affection”
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Svend Erik Larsen
Abstract
With the development of the secular urbanized and industrialized society from the mid-eighteenth century, traditional ways of life lost authority and opened for new approaches to the past, and in the same period emotions began to be seen as a fundamental and universal core of humanity. Gradually, individual sensibility in public and private life and memories based on personal experience were given priority over the power of established traditions from the past to forge social and individual identities. Not least the French Revolution weakened the monopoly of existing institutions of religion, law and governance to determine cultural norms and traditions. With the pre-revolutionary ideas of emotion and memory as a prism, the early phases of realism explored the consequences of this historical shift. However, as realism gained momentum through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, it also intensified its questioning of the positive consequences of an effacement of the past and the adulation of the new, couched as it often was in unrestrained emotional pursuit of individual ambitions for social advancement. Without suggesting radically new ideas about emotion and memory until the end of the nineteenth century, realist writers exposed the dilemmas that triggered the transformations of the culture of emotion and memory in the nineteenth century.
Abstract
With the development of the secular urbanized and industrialized society from the mid-eighteenth century, traditional ways of life lost authority and opened for new approaches to the past, and in the same period emotions began to be seen as a fundamental and universal core of humanity. Gradually, individual sensibility in public and private life and memories based on personal experience were given priority over the power of established traditions from the past to forge social and individual identities. Not least the French Revolution weakened the monopoly of existing institutions of religion, law and governance to determine cultural norms and traditions. With the pre-revolutionary ideas of emotion and memory as a prism, the early phases of realism explored the consequences of this historical shift. However, as realism gained momentum through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, it also intensified its questioning of the positive consequences of an effacement of the past and the adulation of the new, couched as it often was in unrestrained emotional pursuit of individual ambitions for social advancement. Without suggesting radically new ideas about emotion and memory until the end of the nineteenth century, realist writers exposed the dilemmas that triggered the transformations of the culture of emotion and memory in the nineteenth century.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- List of illustrations xi
- Editors’ preface and acknowledgments xiii
- Note on translations, cross-references and documentation xv
- Introduction 1
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Chapter 1. Psychological pathways
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Core essay
- “Memories inwrought with affection” 29
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Case studies
- The interplay between emotion and memory 135
- Situations of sympathy 151
- The poetics of disgust in realist fiction 169
- Attunement 185
- Spanish and Latin American memory novels 201
- History and untold memories 217
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Chapter 2. Referential pathways
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Core essay
- Material matters 233
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Case studies
- Curating realism in a world of objects 271
- Caricature and realism 287
- Realism and allegory 303
- “Distance avails not” 317
- Toward affective realism 337
- Posthumanism and realism 351
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Chapter 3. Formal pathways
-
Core essay
- Dynamics of realist forms 367
-
Case studies
- Forms of realism in children’s literature 473
- Early theatrical realism on page and stage 489
- Poetry, Pessoa and realism 503
- The making of the historical narrative in the Swahili utenzi 519
- Photography and dissent in John Lewis’s graphic novel March 535
- The visions of John Ball 549
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Chapter 4. Geographical pathways
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Core essay
- Dialogic encounters 565
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Case studies
- Varieties of theatrical realism after Ibsen 667
- Is there a notion of ‘realism’ in traditional China? 685
- Worlding of realism 703
- The real magic in Miguel Ángel Asturias’s magical realism 721
- Narrate or describe 737
- Realism in the colony 751
- Notes on contributors 763
- Index 767
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- List of illustrations xi
- Editors’ preface and acknowledgments xiii
- Note on translations, cross-references and documentation xv
- Introduction 1
-
Chapter 1. Psychological pathways
-
Core essay
- “Memories inwrought with affection” 29
-
Case studies
- The interplay between emotion and memory 135
- Situations of sympathy 151
- The poetics of disgust in realist fiction 169
- Attunement 185
- Spanish and Latin American memory novels 201
- History and untold memories 217
-
Chapter 2. Referential pathways
-
Core essay
- Material matters 233
-
Case studies
- Curating realism in a world of objects 271
- Caricature and realism 287
- Realism and allegory 303
- “Distance avails not” 317
- Toward affective realism 337
- Posthumanism and realism 351
-
Chapter 3. Formal pathways
-
Core essay
- Dynamics of realist forms 367
-
Case studies
- Forms of realism in children’s literature 473
- Early theatrical realism on page and stage 489
- Poetry, Pessoa and realism 503
- The making of the historical narrative in the Swahili utenzi 519
- Photography and dissent in John Lewis’s graphic novel March 535
- The visions of John Ball 549
-
Chapter 4. Geographical pathways
-
Core essay
- Dialogic encounters 565
-
Case studies
- Varieties of theatrical realism after Ibsen 667
- Is there a notion of ‘realism’ in traditional China? 685
- Worlding of realism 703
- The real magic in Miguel Ángel Asturias’s magical realism 721
- Narrate or describe 737
- Realism in the colony 751
- Notes on contributors 763
- Index 767
