Realism: A Critical Study

Abstract

The literary production in the second half of the nineteenth century, the era of positivism and science, which depend only on the analysis of real facts, is a production characterized by realism, which is a literary philosophical current with its deep character in the history of European literature.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, a new liberating wind of liberalism blew over the countries of Europe, leaving its impact on authoritarian states, such as constitutional monarchies, and reviving in the spirit of nationalism peoples who were deprived of their freedom and national unity. This liberal trend rose to the top of the year (1848 AD) accompanied by the explosion of successive revolutions characterized by a complex nature that historians were able to describe as (the Spring of Peoples). It is fully present in the works of August Comte and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). These revolutions led to great disappointment, putting an end to romantic dreams of freedom, provoking a deep crisis in the conscience of human beings, so the European man faced a new real reality that he could not yet ignore. The consolidation and prosperity of the bourgeoisie, the penetration of materialism into everyday life, and the radical modification of the scale of values ​​resulting from all of this.