The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in the glass.
--Oscar Wilde


Serious American writers of the late nineteenth century increasingly mirrored in at first realistic and then naturalistic literatures the ravaged faces, psyches and souls of disenfranchised Americans. Through these literary lenses, smiles shifted to scowls, once noble behavior turned brutal, and all escapades ended in graves. Like Caliban, these writers suggested, our struggle for dignity is determined by overpowering, ruthless forces; but unlike literary tempests, they showed, our social storms never subside.

Needless to stay, such harsh literary perspectives shocked a still divided republic whose readers sought solace in sentimentalized aesthetics. We’ll analyze the responses of these readers to this literature, placing ourselves critically in the personal and social circumstances of that American era. We’ll also examine our own aesthetic, our current response to 19th-century Realism and Naturalism, in an effort to discover how and why our responses unite us with or divide us from our American heritage.

Requirements include weekly readings of primary and secondary texts; thoughtful, engaged discussion; researched presentations; and critical writing, in and out of class.