Criticism after Romanticism: 6. Realism and Naturalism

Abstract

An overview of some central ideas and movements in nineteenth-century criticism and aesthetics, after the heyday of Romanticism. This lecture centers on the development of the theory of realistic prose fiction, with Bulwer-Lytton, Henry James and William Dean Howells among others, and the fin-de-siècle Naturalist aesthetic exemplified in the theories of Zola.

Keywords: Aesthetics, Realism, History of Criticism, Prose fiction, Narratology, Zola, Henry James, Bulwer-Lytton, William Dean Howells,