Realism
by
Raymond Williams writes that “realism is a difficult word, not only because of the intricacy of the disputes in art and philosophy to which its predominant uses refer, but also because the two words on which it seems to depend, real and reality, have a very complicated linguistic history” prior to the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, realism was a new word but already had four identifiable meanings, only one of which “describe[d] a method or attitude in art and literature—at first an exceptional accuracy of representation, later a commitment to describing real events and showing things as they actually exist” (Williams 1983b, 259). In literature for children and young adults, each part of this description touches other contested territory in the field. The eighteenth century’s stress on reason and rationality challenged fairy tales and fantasy and made way for the pragmatic and the realistic text. The Romantic era’s belief that “fantasy is the proper literature for young children” (Richardson 1994, xiii) might have pushed realism to the side if not for the period’s attention to education, literacy, and the growing popularity of the bildungsroman. Despite the rise of British fantasy, the twentieth century’s suspicions about the potential dangers...
This essay may be found on page 168 of the printed volume.