--The two greatest representatives of the new school of
realism in fiction are William D. Howells and Henry James. Both have set
forth in special essays the realist's art of fiction. The growing interest
in democracy was the moving force in realism. In that realist's textbook,
Criticism and Fiction (1891), Howells says of the aristocratic spirit in
literature:--
"It is averse to the mass of men; it consents to know them only in some
conventionalized and artificial guise.... Democracy in literature is the
reverse of all this. It wishes to know and to tell the truth, confident
that consolation and delight are there; it does not care to paint the
marvelous and impossible for the vulgar many, or to sentimentalize and
falsify the actual for the vulgar few."
"Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of
material," says Howells. He sometimes insists on considering "honesty" and
"realism" as synonymous terms. His primary object is not merely to amuse by
a pleasant story or to startle by a horrible one. His object is to reflect
life as he finds it, not only unusual or exceptional life. He believes that
it is false to real life to overemphasize certain facts, to overlook the
trivial, and to make all life dramatic.
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