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INtroductION
Up until around 1850, America continued to expand westward, and as the country developed, so did the literature. During the Civil War, Americans witnessed the brutal reality of war and death, and the unified identity that America had found in the Romantic period was shattered. This led American authors to change their themes of writing from the emotional and imaginary to the realistic side of the world. Two major literary branches formed after the Civil War as a critique to the Romantic period, Realism and Naturalism. The branch of Realism was a literary movement that developed towards the end of the Civil War. Writings of this movement were usually written in response to the Civil War and the frontier life out west, such as in the journals and diaries in this unit. Realism stressed the actual (reality) as opposed to the imaginary or fanciful that was found in Romantic writing. It placed a premium on society, almost using it as a character in some works. The vernacular was changed to a simple, to-the-point style writing in order to remove the unnecessary and unrealistic part of writing. Because of this, realism focused greatly on the characters in a work, as those characters were the key part and focus in the story. Naturalism was an offshoot of the Realism movement. Similar to Realism, Naturalism depicted real people in real situations, however, writers in this movement believed that forces larger than the individual, such as nature, fate, or heredity, shaped an individual’s destiny. The Naturalism movement also changed the views on nature than what was originally held during the Romantic period. In Naturalism, nature is often times depicted as the enemy of people and society, and it doesn’t care who lives and who dies. It doesn’t matter whether humans survive or not, nature will continue to live. Naturalists went from keeping nature on an equal level with man and God to placing it above both. The Civil War and the violence that Americans witnessed caused them to change to writing about the realistic parts and nothing more. No longer would the Romantic ideals of imagination and emotion dominate the works from 1870 to 1910. During this time, authors wrote about the realistic side of the world and the powerful force of nature and fate could affect a person’s future.
Author: Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane was born November 1, 1871 in Newark, New Jersey. He was the last of fourteen children and was mostly raised by his sister, Agnes Crane. He attended a preparatory school at Claverack College during his early years. He only attended a college in Easton, Pennsylvania for two years. He then attended the College of Liberal Arts at Syracuse University, but did not graduate from there either. However, it is believed that during this time at college, Crane wrote his first draft of a future work Maggie, A Girl on the Streets. In the early 1890’s, Crane seriously began his writing career when he moved to New York. There, he worked as a reporter and an editor for the New York Tribune. While in New York, he focused on the poorer side of life there, particularly in an area called the Bowery. In 1893, he finished and published his first major work, Maggie, a Girl on the Streets, in which he included a lot of the details that he saw in the slums of New York. His work was rejected by several publishers because of this, so he ended up publishing the work himself under a different name. The work itself failed and left Crane poor, however, it did gain the attention of several people for such a detailed look at the poor life in New York. In 1895, Crane wrote his most famous work, The Red Badge of Courage. This work became famous for its accurate depictions of violence and psychological conflict that went on in the Civil War (which he gained from research). This work also reflected the realistic theme of the time period, which would set Crane’s mark in the history of Realism. This work gained instant fame for its author, and Crane became well known as a war writer. Shortly after publishing The Red Badge of Courage, Crane took the job of a war correspondent. In 1897, Crane traveled to Cuba as part of this job, however, the ship he was on sunk and he spent over a day in the ocean. This tragedy led him to write another famous short story, The Open Boat. In the same year, Crane met a woman named Cora Taylor. They became husband and wife and moved to England where Crane met and befriended several famous people, such as Henry James. Crane left England to go report on the Spanish-American War for a newspaper called the New York World. His major reason for taking the job was to temporarily escape some debt he and his wife had acquired. When he returned, his physical health was weak and he constantly became ill. In the next year, Crane’s health rapidly declined. In 1900, at the age of 28, Crane died from tuberculosis. Stephen Crane was a well known author during the literary movements of Realism and Naturalism. His work The Red Badge of Couragewon him international fame as a realistic war writer. However, Crane could never produce anything even comparable, and so his reputation and talent declined until his death in 1900. Even so, Stephen Crane’s works about the Civil War defined him as one of the most important early Realism and Naturalism writers.
Literary Themes
After the Civil War, the literary divisions of Realism and Naturalism were focused on the reality of things, no longer the imaginary and unrealistic. This change was due to the harsh brutality of the war, which brought authors to their senses. They needed to portray what they heard and saw about the war. Diaries, journals, and personal letters were written to describe the author's views of the war, whether they were meant to be shared to the outside world or not. This leaves readers the job of figuring out whether or not the writing was an opinion or strictly factual. Short stories written during this time also reflected the Civil War. Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek, for example, was about a quite realistic possibility during the time, a Southerner being hanged by Union soldiers. A lot of the works during this time were not exaggerated or over-worded, they got straight to the point, giving just the necessary details.
Important Authors and their works
Ambrose Bierce: author of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Stephen Crane: author of An Episode of War, Maggie: A Girl on the Streets, and The Red Badge of Courage Mary Chestnut: author of Civil War Abraham Lincoln: author of The Gettysburg Address Robert E. Lee: wrote Letters to His Son