Realism

Coming to prominence with the nineteenth-century novel, literary realism has traditionally been associated with an insistence that art cannot turn away from the harsher, more sordid aspects of human existence. However, the fluid nature of the related concepts of ‘reality’ and ‘the real’ have led to realism becoming one of the most widely debated terms to be covered in this series. Realism offers an accessible account of literary realism as a distinctive mode of writing, setting out the defining attributes of the genre and exploring the critical debates surrounding it, illustrated throughout with examples taken from a wide variety of prose fiction. The book covers the historical development and artistic achievements of literary realism and presents a lucid argument for its continuing status as an innovative and challenging tradition of writing, with rigorous exploration of the radical critique brought to bear on realist forms of representation during the twentieth century from the perspectives of modernism, poststructuralism and postmodernism. This comprehensive guide is essential reading for any student of literature, and will prove indispensable for those with a particular interest in the realist novel. --------------------- Pam Morris is Professor of Modern Critical Studies at Liverpool John Moores University and has written extensively on nineteenth-century literature and culture. She is the editor of The Bakhtin Reader (1994) and author of Literature and Feminism (1993) and Imagining Inclusive Society in Nineteenth-Century Novels: The Code of Sincerity in the Public Sphere (2004). ------------------------- The New Critical Idiom is an invaluable series of introductory guides to today’s critical terminology. Each book: provides a handy, explanatory guide to the use (and abuse) of the term offers an original and distinctive overview by a leading literary and cultural critic relates the term to the larger field of cultural representation With a strong emphasis on clarity, lively debate and the widest possible breadth of examples, The New Critical Idiom is an indispensable approach to key topics in literary studies. Also available in this series: Autobiography by Linda Anderson Class by Gary Day Colonialism/Postcolonialism by Ania Loomba Crime Fiction by John Scaggs Culture/Metaculture by Francis Mulhern Discourse by Sara Mills Dramatic Monologue by Glennis Byron Genders by David Glover and Cora Kaplan Gothic by Fred Botting Historicism by Paul Hamilton Humanism by Tony Davies Ideology by David Hawkes Interdisciplinarity by Joe Moran Intertextuality by Graham Allen Literature by Peter Widdowson Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form by Philip Hobsbaum Modernism by Peter Childs Myth by Laurence Coupe Narrative by Paul Cobley Parody by Simon Dentith Pastoral by Terry Gifford Romanticism by Aidan Day Science Fiction by Adam Roberts Sexuality by Joseph Bristow Stylistics by Richard Bradford The Unconscious by Antony Easthope