Entry 60: Think About...

Referring to the text pages 442-461, answer the following questions:

• How and when did American writers and poets respond to the Civil War?
• What are the basic characteristics of realism?
• What did the naturalist writers believe?

• The American writers were the first ones to respond to the Civil War. After the first few attacks and battles in 1861, the American writers started to respond in the newspapers by publishing their articles. As the war continued on, more responses appeared in the forms of published poems instead of articles, but still in newspapers.
• The basic characters of realism are quite different from the basic characteristics of romanticism and other forms of literature. The style of realism differs from that of romanticism because it's literary and visual works are not "sugar coated", and are not idealistic. Instead, as its name implies, it depicts realistic things and situations in a very realistic way. Some examples of situations include suffering due to war, poverty, and hunger. Realistic works are usually about ordinary and common people who live in poverty. The realistic era mainly started because of the Industrial Revolution and the devastating effects it had on society, its people, and its environment. The realists were just trying to respond to reality and trying to gain the attention of people so that they could change their conditions.
• Naturalist writers mainly believe in the scientific disciplines of psychology and sociology. They also believe that human behavior determines individual power. The naturalists take after the rationalist beliefs.