Realism and Naturalism: Literary Styles Explained
Realism: The Aesthetics of Realism, fascinated by the advances of science, attempts to make literature a document that serves as a testimony to the society of its time, similar to the newborn photography. Its features include:
- Faithful and accurate reproduction of reality in works.
- Careful use of description to show accurate profiles of themes, characters, situations, and locations.
- Focus on the everyday, exposing political and social problems.
- Rejection of sentimentality, showing the raw objective reality.
- Use of colloquial language and critical works, expressing common language and rejecting the current.
- Works show a relationship between people and their economic and social environment, with characters as evidence of an age, social class, or trade.
- Issues related to problems of human existence.
- The author analyzes, reproduces, and reports the problems afflicting society.
- Attempts to transmit ideas in the most truthful and objective way possible.
In short, realism aims to reflect the truth as it is.
Naturalism: A style of art, especially literary, alleging sexual and documentary objectivity in all its aspects, from the most sublime to the most vulgar. Its leader, theoretician, and promoter was journalist Émile Zola, who exposed this theory in the preface to his novel Thérèse Raquin and especially in Le Roman expérimental (1880). From France, Naturalism spread throughout.
Legends:
The Moonbeam: Manrique, a very self-enclosed, noble individual, appreciated solitude highly. His greatest weakness was poetry, and therefore, his solitary nature allowed him to think and exercise his mind. One warm summer night in the woods of Soria, Manrique saw a woman dressed in white. She seemed to be the perfect woman, but she disappeared quickly. For two months, his efforts were in vain. But one night, after returning to the same place, the scene repeated itself, just as fleetingly. He realized that he was pursuing a moonbeam that could be seen among the foliage of the forest, which led him to think that love and glory were hidden in a moonbeam.
The Gold Bangle: Pedro Alfonso de Orellana loved Maria Antunez limitlessly. One day he surprised her in tears. After much insistence, he learned that the woman obsessively longed to embrace the golden jewel bearing the image of the Virgen del Sagrario, patroness of the city of Toledo. Overcoming his previous resistance, that night the lover entered the Cathedral quietly to steal the coveted bracelet of the Virgin, but he could not take it because the temple was filled with supernatural beings, zombies, and horrific beasts. In those visions, he freaked out and fell vanished. The next morning, he was found delirious in the church, while retaining the bracelet in her hands.