By the late 1840s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution,
Realism replaced Romanticism, its ideas only lingering in the
medium of art. In the middle of the 19th century, new literary
movements such as the Parnassians, the symbolists in poetry,
and the realists and naturalists in prose. The American Civil
War led to a rise in Realism in American literature. In Britain,
anti-romantic attitudes in English fiction, poetry, and criticism
grew due to the growth of the industrialized society, two world
wars, and the decay of religion and morality. According to some
literary historians, the death of Romanticism in literature
and drama was proclaimed when Victor Hugo's play, Les Burgraves,
failed in 1843.
Realism began in France
with Gustave Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant, and soon hit the
shores of England with George Eliot's Adam Bede. The
focus of literature soon shifted to the struggles of the middle-class
and human behavior to display a more realistic view of life.
In short, realists tended to avoid overwhelming dramatic issues
in favor of detachedly describing fact and reality. The opposing
ideas of Romanticism and Realism can be seen in Elizabeth Gaskell's
Wives and Daughters, specifically in the two brothers,
Roger and Osborne Hamley. The novel is set in the 1830s, during
the flourishing of the industrial revolution. Roger, who represents
the succession of industry, pursues a scientific career and
prospers as a great scientist. His brother Osborne is more inclined
to writing poetry, and against his father's wishes, marries
for the sake of love. Consequently, he dies of a fatal illness.
Gaskell hints that the idealism of Romanticism is only momentary.
In art, the great landscapes
of nature were replaced by scenes of common, everyday life,
especially that of the working class. In America, simplicity
overthrew elaboration and portraits were painted more honestly.
American realist works were collectively identified as the Ashcan
school or the Eight. In France, historians argue that Delacroix's
death in 1863 and the rebellion against French academic painting
in the Salon des Refusés ended Romanticism in visual
art.
In music, Realism and
Naturalism were practically nonexistent. The closest music came
to Naturalism was through Musorgsky, the verismo operatic movement
in late-19th-century Italy, and Symbolistic and Realist elements
in Wagner and Verdi. With World War I, Romantic music became
more pronounced and evolved to the musical style of Neoclassicism.
With industrialization,
the American Civil War, and unsuccessful revolutions in continental
Europe, Romanticism declined and Realism thrived. However, Realism
and Naturalism sustained several characteristics of Romanticism,
and it is upon this fact that literary scholars identify Victorianism
as a later stage of Romanticism. Thus it was not until the Modernist
Era and World War I that Romanticism disappeared altogether.
Sources
"Realism (literature),"
Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.
Longyear, Ray M. Nineteenth-Century
Romanticism in Music. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1988.
Noyes, Russell. English Romantic
Poetry and Prose. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956.
"Romanticism (literature),"
Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation.
All rights reserved.
