Fr. 143.00

The Romance of Real Life - A History of European Realism

English · Hardback

Will be released 14.05.2026

Description

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About the author

Marshall Brown
, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

Summary

The Romance of Real Life
, a common title in nineteenth-century European and American fiction, identifies the basic dilemma confronting realists throughout the century: reality is not always interesting, and romance is not always believable.

This simple thesis, familiar in individual cases, has never been explored as comprehensively as here. Equally attentive to philology, stylistics, plot layout, and the slow trends that transform genres, Marshall Brown’s study offers a unique slant on fictional form as a challenge rather than a rigid container, traced through a rare combination of minute close readings and large-scale synopses.
Following examinations of recent theories of form and of periodization, the book turns to the Romantic theory of the novel in the very disparate discourses in Germany, Britain, and France, then to early and marginal examples of realism, poems in novels, chapter groupings, and parallels between American and European fiction; it concludes with the disruption of realism by the new short story genre and with the ghosts in late-century novels that pave the way toward modernism.

Product details

Authors Marshall Brown
Publisher De Gruyter
 
Languages English
Product format Hardback
Release 14.05.2026
 
EAN 9783112229477
ISBN 978-3-11-222947-7
No. of pages 366
Series Mimesis
Subjects Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Romance linguistics / literary studies

Literaturgeschichte, Englisch, Literaturtheorie, Realismus, Fiktion, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / German, Realism, Literary History, formalism, Formalismus

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