From the literary point of view,19th century is the era of novels; However, European novels have developed by leaps and bounds in this century, and an unprecedented situation has emerged, which is largely attributed to the promotion of realistic literary movement in human comedy.
Realistic writers have great interest and consciousness in reflecting complex real life. No matter which side of life their creation focuses on and what theme they choose, their concern is not limited to individual characters or events, but they try to summarize the face of the times and describe their "customs", social class and complicated realistic relations through the tortuous fate of the protagonist.
/kloc-in the 9th century, among the novels that have become the main literary forms, from the perspective of subject types, family novels and novels with the theme of young people's pursuit and destiny are the most prominent. But for realistic writers, family is never isolated from social life, but a very important and special field in human life. Family novels describe all kinds of conflicts in this field, among which Balzac's Eugenie Grandet, Dickens' Dombey and Son, david copperfield, Turgenev's House of Nobles, Tolstoy's Anna karenin and Mo Bosang's Life are the most representative works.
/kloc-the popularity of family life novels in the 0/9th century is not because writers want to escape into the safe haven of family life and seek temporary psychological peace; On the contrary, all kinds of shocking "dramas" in family life, which have always been affectionate, can best reflect the great changes in moral ethics and social values, thus becoming an excellent perspective for writers to describe social life. In these novels, social life is not only the background of family life, but also the source of various contradictions and conflicts within the family.
Young heroes in realistic novels are not desert heroes who are far away from society, and novels about their fate are even more eye-catching than family life novels. Stendhal's Red and Black, Balzac's Human Comedy (such as Disillusionment), Thackeray's Vanity Fair, lermontov's Contemporary Heroes, Flaubert's Emotional Education (with the subtitle of A Young Man's Story) and many other works are representative works in this respect. In these novels, the author reveals the moral truth of that society and how it distorts and destroys the younger generation, or highlights the opposition between young people and society to reflect the darkness of society and the oppression of people. Young people who pursue a way out and happiness must either dry their last pure tears, follow the morality of society and move towards prosperity, or they will not succumb to society and be suffocated and strangled by it.
Carmen Steels
It can be said that in realistic novels, from the truest and most ordinary daily family life, one's fate to the great changes in social history, the emotional world and psychological secrets of the protagonists in various social whirlpools have been clearly reflected. Pay close attention to contemporary social life, deeply understand the relationship between personal destiny and society, as well as various social contradictions, rich in content and so on. , make19th century realistic novels become social novels fundamentally. In this respect, Tolstoy's immortal works are exemplary.
French realistic literature
France is the birthplace of realistic literature, and Stendhal (1783- 1842) is the founder of French critical realism. He is good at grasping society from a political perspective. Racine and Shakespeare (1825), published in the 1920s, first expounded the principles of realistic creation. The novel Red and Black published by 1830 is a pioneering work of French critical realism.
Most early French critical realist writers experienced the transition from romanticism to realism, such as Hugo, Stendhal, Merimee and Balzac. French realistic literature is famous for its broad social picture, unique artistic image and strong rational critical spirit. In the content of Carmen's stills, it mainly focuses on the contradiction between urban rich civilians and declining nobles, as well as the vanity of ordinary citizens.
Balzac (1799— 1850) was the most outstanding writer in France in the 9th century. He is good at grasping society from an economic perspective. His huge systematic project "Human Comedy" is a towering monument in the history of world literature.
Stendhal (formerly known as Henry Bell) was born in Grenoble on 1783. Stendhal's works are few, including the novels Hammans, Red and Black, Loufan in Lv Xian (also known as Red and White), Bama Temple and some short stories. Among them, Red and Black is his masterpiece and the first mature work of French realism.
Jane Eyre
Merimee (1803-1870) is one of the most artistic writers in the history of French literature in the 9th century, and also the most outstanding novelist in France before Mo Bosang. His main creative achievement is one of the few 20 short stories, almost all of which are masterpieces. The most famous are Carmen and Gao.
Flaubert (1821-1880) is the most important realistic writer in France after Balzac in the mid-9th century. With his aesthetic principle of "objective indifference" and rigorous and delicate artistic style, he is unique in the history of French literature, paving the way for later naturalism and aestheticism.
Flaubert wrote eight novels in his life. His main works are: Madame Bovary (1856), Salombo (1862), Emotional Education (1869), The Temptation of Saint Antoine (1874) and so on. He is a writer with a very strict creative attitude. He believes in the maxim of boileau, a classical theorist: "Poetry is fluent, but it is difficult to write". He gave careful consideration to his works and made painstaking efforts in structure, language and artistic conception, striving for perfection. The surgeon's family environment cultivated his experimental tendency; The deliberate pursuit of artistic beauty has formed his exquisite, rigorous and clear artistic style.
Mo Bosang is a famous short story writer in the late 20th century of French/KLOC-9, and he is known as the "king of short stories" in the literary world. 1880 The publication of boule de suif made him famous. Several naturalist writers gathered around Zola published Night in Meitang with the theme of Franco-Prussian War, among which boule de suif was the best one, which Flaubert called "a masterpiece of layout, comedy and observation". After becoming famous, Mo Bosang had the opportunity to set foot in the upper class, which broadened his horizons. Starting from 1883, he wrote novels about the upper class: Life (1883), Belami (1885), Hot Springs (1887) and Pierre and Jean (1887).
English realistic literature
English realistic literature came into being in 1930s, and entered a prosperous period in 1940s and 1950s, with some outstanding novelists, such as Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Brontexq and Lady Gaskell. In addition, there are influential writers such as Austin, emily bronte and George Eliot, whose works contributed to the prosperity of English literature in the middle of19th century.
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, a port city in the south of England. Two years after Charles Dickens was born, his family moved to London. After living in London for three years, the whole family moved to Chatham. Dickens started school in Chatham. His father has some books, although the number is small, but there are good books such as tom jones, Pastor wakefield's Biography, Jill Brass, Don Quixote, Langdon Biography and Little Mount Tai. Young Dickens has read these books more than once. As for the influence of these books on him, it can be clearly seen from his later novel creation.
From 1857, Charles Dickens was 45 years old, which was the heyday of his creation and social activities. He publishes an influential novel almost every two years, such as DombeyandSon 1848, david copperfield (David Copperfield, 1850), Bleak House (1853) and Hard Times (/Kloc-0).
Jane Austen (1775— 18 17) is a realistic novelist during the transition from 18th century to19th century. In her 42-year life, she left six novels: Pride and Prejudice (18 13), Emma (18 15) and Sense and Sensibility (1815). The themes of these novels all come from the family life of the middle class in rural England. But the author is good at finding serious moral themes from these mundane trivial matters of life and social conditions. The artistic technique of humor and satire makes the works fresh and profound, with endless aftertaste. This is Austin's outstanding contribution to English realistic novels. Austen's masterpieces include Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Both novels are about love and marriage, which vividly reflect the rural customs and social psychology at that time and reveal the occlusion of rural life in England from the end of 18 to the beginning of 19.
Thackeray (1811-1863) is an equally famous English realistic novelist. He inherited the realism tradition of Swift and Fielding, and in a few novels, he used irony to create a large number of colorful characters, becoming "a first-class genius among contemporary European writers" and "a sharp and ruthless satirist". His excellent satirical ability, sharp attack on social ugliness and humorous style of satire make him occupy a special position in the history of English literature.
Charlotte Brontexq (18 16- 1855) is one of the three famous Bronte sisters in the history of English literature. She is a woman writer with literary talent and artistic charm. She wrote four novels in her life: The Teacher (1846), Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849) and villette (1853), which described the intellectual women of ordinary citizens.
Emily bronte (1818-1848), Charlotte Brontexq's sister, is famous in the literary world for her only novel Wuthering Heights (1847). The novel describes the strange love between Heathcliff and his girlfriend Catherine, and his abnormal revenge character. Through Heathcliff and Catherine's painful and tortuous love experience, it shows the distortion and return of human nature and the theme of love and revenge.
Influenced by Ibsen, Bernard Shaw (1856- 1950) insisted that art should reflect urgent social problems and opposed the idea of "art for art's sake". He thought that drama was a "factory of ideas" and the stage was a "propaganda platform", thus starting his drama creation. He wrote 5 1 plays from the first play published in 1892 to his death in 1950.
Russian realistic literature
After the Napoleonic Wars, western democratic ideas and western culture attracted Russians, and Russian literature began to prosper. In less than 100 years, Pushkin, lermontov, Nikolai Nikolai Gogol, belinsky, Goncharov, Turgenev, Necrasov, ostrovsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and other literary giants who are known as "the great names of shining stars" appeared. Russian realistic literature was formed a little later than western European countries, but it developed rapidly and achieved remarkable results. In the 1940s, when French realistic literature reached its climax, Russian realistic literature was just formed. In the 1950s and 1960s, when French literary criticism began to weaken, Russian literature developed rapidly and reached its peak in the 1960s.
Pushkin (1799- 1837) is a master of Russian traditional progressive literature and the founder of realistic literature. His lyric poems are full of romanticism and Russian national life. Yevgeni onegin is the pioneer of the image of "superfluous man" in Russian literary history. The national characteristics and language style of Russian literature in his works initiated a new era of Russian literature.
Lermontov (1814-1841) is a poet in The Decemberists and a direct descendant of Pushkin. In his short 27 years, he wrote more than 400 lyric poems and a novel-Contemporary Heroes (1840). Bi, the hero of the novel, is deeply dissatisfied with the empty life of aristocratic society, but he only has the extraordinary talent of European social situation reflected in oil paintings in the19th century, and lacks life goals, so he works hard and wastes his life. Lermontov used Bi Qiao Lin's diary to write the self-knowledge of another "superfluous person" in the history of Russian literature, which opened the psychological analysis and psychological description of Russian realistic novels.
Mark Twain, the representative of American realism
Fedor Mihailovski (1821-1881) was an outstanding Russian writer in the middle and late 9th century. Crime and Punishment published by 1866 won the author a worldwide reputation. Brothers karamazov, published in 1880, is a summary of the author's philosophical thoughts and is called the greatest novel in the history of human civilization. Some writers commented: "Dostoevsky devoted his life to studying the relationship between man and God, often swinging between heaven and hell, shuttling between the poles of divinity and magic, until he was 60 years old, and finally wrote Brothers Karamay, which set a peak in the field of human spirit."
Tolstoy 1828 was born in Jasna Paulia, Wenxian County, Clapiz, Tula Province (now Tula Xiaojin District). His family is an aristocratic family, and its lineage can be traced back to16th century. His distant ancestor was knighted from Peter I, 1855 1 1 entered the literary world of Petersburg, and his famous work is the autobiographical novel Childhood (1855). From the novella A Landlord's Morning (1856), we can see that he advocated top-down reform from the standpoint of liberal aristocrats, and the experiment failed in Baiji Manor.
Tolstoy wrote the long historical novel War and Peace from 1863 to 1869, which was the first milestone in his creative process. Based on the relationship between the four major families, the novel shows the broad social life picture of Russia from the city to the countryside at that time, and reflects a series of major historical events from 1805 to 1820, especially the patriotic war against Napoleon led by Kutuzov in18/2, which praised the patriotic enthusiasm and heroic struggle spirit of the Russian people. This novel has a grand structure, many characters and vivid typical images. It is a masterpiece with the characteristics of epic and chronicle. From 1873 to 1877, after 12 revisions, he completed his second landmark masterpiece "anna karenine", and the novel art reached perfection.
American realistic literature
American literature from 1865 to 19 14 is called the realistic period in the history of American literature. American literature in this period is the expression of American spirit, especially American novels. Realism is a response to romanticism. Face reality, not daydreaming. Realistic literature paved the way for modernist literature.
The American society after the civil war written by Mark Twain provided fertile soil for the rise and development of realism. During the 50 years from the Civil War to the First World War, great changes have taken place in American history, whether in politics, economy, culture or religion. This great change has completely changed the nature and concept of American society. The new generation writers are not satisfied with the romanticism of the older generation, and have new creative inspiration. They have a strong interest in real life, trying to explain all aspects of life, advocating objective truth and abandoning subjective prejudice, idealism and romanticism. People's interest has now turned to all aspects of daily life. They have noticed the cruelty and filth of reality and directly described the class struggle. At this time, writers have been able to describe the reflection of characters in various conditions or environments, and describe the struggle between far westerners, new immigrants and the working class. These writers are welcomed by readers. This creative tendency of paying attention to real life formed American literature in the realistic period.
The writers who put forward the idea of "Theory of Three Represents" in this period are William Dan Howells, Henry James and Mark Twain. Scientists have truly described the local customs of the United States, with a strong local flavor, and tapped people's inner lives. They faithfully recorded life in the eastern part of the United States in the second half of the 19th century, including frontier areas, villages, towns and noisy cities that are about to disappear. There are local heroes, American girls, middle-class families forced by life, businessmen and citizens with complicated psychology. In a word, they set an example for later realistic literature in theme, skill and style. The second stage of .............................................................................................: the development of Europe and America in the 20th century.
Realistic writers produced many Nobel Prize in Literature laureates in the 20th century.
In the 20th century, the realistic literature in European and American countries generally developed greatly, and it was always in a basically balanced situation in the historical process of the whole century, instead of the achievement that one or two countries were in the leading position in a certain period, as in19th century. On the whole, France, Britain and the United States, which have made great progress in the19th century, continue to maintain a good momentum; Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other countries have changed their backward appearance and reached unprecedented heights; Many famous writers have emerged in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and Northern Europe. In this magical land of Latin America, the first light of literature comes from realistic literature, and the "literary explosion" that caused a great sensation in the world literary world after the 1960s also laid the foundation for realistic literature.
Realistic literature in eastern Europe
Realistic literature in Eastern Europe is closely related to national interests and national destiny. Czech writer yaroslav Hasek (1883- 1923) criticized the silence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in his political satire The Good Soldier Handsome (1920- 1923), and created a kind, optimistic and unyielding ordinary person representing the Czech national spirit. Milan Kundera, another Czech writer, wrote a series of novels with unique style, which showed the extreme sadness and pain of the Czech people who lost their freedom of existence and national sovereignty. Polish poetess Vislava Shim Borska (1923 I) is good at putting profound philosophy between the lines of her works. Her poems, from calling for a snowman (1953) to ending and beginning (1993), all focus on expressing the connotation of human beings in nature and history.
Realistic literature in southern and northern Europe
Epic works describing the rise and fall of ancient families and works expressing anti-fascist themes are the most successful. The Fruits of the Earth by Norwegian writer Knut hamson (1859-1920-l922) and Sigrid Undset (191922).
Realistic literature in Latin America
Realistic literature in Latin America developed synchronously with the struggle of national democratic revolution in this region, and flourished and made great achievements from the beginning of the 20th century to the middle of the 20th century. The famous Mexican realistic writers are Mariano Azoula (1873- 1952) and Okay Tawiah Paz (19 14- 1998). The former's The Bottom People (19 15) reproduces the history of the Mexican democratic revolution and describes the struggle of the oppressed peasants for land and freedom. The latter's Sunstone (195) praised the glory of ancient culture and expressed the love for the motherland.
Pablo neruda (1904- 1973), an outstanding realistic poet in Chile, a great national poet and one of the brightest stars in Latin American poetry, enjoys a high international reputation. 1970 won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Milan. Kundera
The Czech writer Milan Kundera (1929 I) regards humor as a form of expressing absurdity, and irony as a powerful weapon to dissect life. He writes the tragic content in a relaxed, casual and often playful, humorous and sarcastic style, showing the insights of wise men who absolutely and unconditionally affirm the existence of human beings beyond narrowness. His novels attracted the world's attention in the early 1920s, when there was an upsurge in the literary world called "Kundera phenomenon".
Realistic Literature —— An Overview of Socialism
This term and its definition were put forward by writers and theorists when the Soviet literary and art circles discussed the creative methods from 1932 to 1934, and were determined with Stalin's consent. Regarding the definition of socialist realism, 1934, the Constitution of the Quiet Don Writers Association of the Soviet Union adopted by the first writers' congress of the whole Soviet Union stated as follows: "Socialist realism, as the basic method of Soviet literature and Soviet literary criticism, requires artists to describe reality truly and historically from the perspective of the revolutionary development of reality; At the same time, the authenticity and historical concreteness of artistic description must be combined with the task of transforming and educating working people with socialist spirit. Socialist realism ensures that artistic creation has special possibilities to give full play to the initiative of creation and choose various forms, styles and genres. "
What is directly related to socialist realistic literature is proletarian literature. Since the proletariat became an independent political force and stepped onto the stage of world history, the proletarian literature movement began. English chartist poetry, German proletarian poetry and French Paris Commune literature are the beginnings of proletarian literature. Generally speaking, socialist realistic literature was formed in the early 20th century, that is, after the 1905 Russian Revolution, and began with Gorky's creation of Mother and Enemy. /kloc-Proletarian poetry in the 0/9th century, including portal's Paris Commune literature, is only the bud of proletarian literature, and cannot be regarded as socialist realistic literature. Although scientific socialism was formed in the middle of19th century, which can scientifically demonstrate the historical regularity of the inevitable victory of socialism, the workers' movement in this period has just begun. Writers and artists associated with the workers' movement, because the workers' movement itself is still immature, can't paint a broad realistic picture of the whole era and social life associated with the workers' movement. To achieve this, only under the leadership of the proletariat, millions of people United for socialist ideology take action. In other words, socialist realism is associated with the mature stage of proletarian revolution. Only during the first Russian revolution did the situation and characteristics of this revolution exist. Gorky's novel Mother matured in the climax of the first Russian revolution. This work has a profound realistic foundation. Guided by the Marxist world outlook, the author truly shows the broad picture of Russian proletarian revolutionary struggle from the realistic revolutionary development, clearly shows the future prospect of this revolution, reveals the revolutionary torrent that runs through the whole social life through the description of the artistic image of revolutionaries, and establishes the belief that the socialist cause will surely win for workers. Here, Gorky used a different method from previous artists to solve the new problems raised by art in the new era, and the appearance of Mother marked the beginning of a new era in the history of world art. Gorky is recognized as the founder of socialist realistic literature.
The victory of the October Revolution provided a reliable guarantee for the development of art along the direction of socialist realism. Although many literary schools and groups with different ideological tendencies appeared in the Soviet literary and art circles in the early days of the victory of the revolution, since the mid-1920s, a large number of important works with the same ideological and artistic tendencies have appeared in Soviet literature, such as Serafimovic's Liu Tie, Furmanov's Chabaev, Ge Ratkov's Cement and Mayakovski's Lenin and Good! Fadeev's Destruction, sholokhov's The Silent Don (up and down), panfilov's The Grindstone Farm, and the works of Tolstoy, leonov, Feiding and other writers. The common feature of these works is to inherit and develop the basic principles of Gorky's creation of Mother. On the basis of being loyal to reality, they strive for a comprehensive historical description of real events and show enthusiasm for new things, which have become the leading trend of Soviet literature. The cover of the Chinese translation of Serafimovic's Liu Tie. From the second half of the 1920s, many Soviet writers and theorists began to pay attention to these increasingly mature experiences in creative practice, and put forward slogans of proletarian realism, inclined realism, social realism, heroic realism and many other different creative methods from different angles. Among them, theorists of "Lapp" (Russian Federation of Proletarian Writers) strongly advocate "dialectical materialism creation method" and directly apply philosophical concepts to artistic creation.
Socialist realism has now become the banner of all progressive writers in the world, and the literature of China people is advancing under this banner. Just as China's new-democratic revolution is an integral part of the proletarian socialist world revolution, China people's literature is also an integral part of the world socialist realistic literature.
The third stage: realistic literature-new realism
Schools in the field of Italian film literature after World War II. Neo-realism is the product of the resistance movement, which reflects the ideals and requirements of this movement. They are a group of progressive literary and art workers who have been baptized by the anti-fascist struggle. The ideological banner is to strive for social progress, democracy and equality, and art programs faithfully reflect the truth of history and the reality faced. Neo-realism literature lasted for more than ten years from birth to decline.
It has gone through different stages of development. Reflecting the resistance movement and the southern issue, it runs through the early neo-realism literature like a red line. By experiencing the "dark twenty years" under Mussolini's rule or participating in the anti-fascist struggle, writers enthusiastically describe the epic struggle of the Italian people against fascism and German Nazi invaders (Vigano: The Death of Anne Silk, 1949), mercilessly expose and lash out at the heinous crime of fascism harming good people (Primo Levi: If this is a person), and expose the amazing poverty and backwardness in southern Italy with great practical strength. Reflect the southern farmers' struggle for land and their political consciousness (Iovine: sacred land,1950; Botao: Tianhong,1947; Robber, 195 1). On the other hand, the early neo-realism works also have some defects that cannot be ignored. Writers can't understand the facts they describe correctly and deeply, and they lack artistic generalization and revelation of the facts themselves. They ask sharp questions, but they can't find the crux of the problem, let alone solve it, so they often show petty-bourgeois consciousness and sadness.
The basic characteristics of these works are humanitarian thought and the creative principle of writing truth. Neo-realists are full of sincere love and sympathy, describing the kind and weak little people such as the unemployed, the homeless, the poor peasants and civil servants. In order to get a piece of bread and a piece of land, they fought against their fate, but they all ended in failure, and their beautiful pursuit was in vain. The writers shouted loudly and protested angrily against what happened to the little people. These works, which are full of humanitarianism, show the profound conflict and opposition between the working people and the harsh reality of capitalist society, and expose the gloomy scene that the people of the whole society are in dire straits.