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(Return to the English 2326 Table of Contents) (Return to the English 2326 Syllabus) The "realists" reject, often in sardonic attacks, the idealism of the American romantics. The purpose of high literature is to tell the truth, even, if for the extreme naturalist, that means "nature red in tooth and claw." Growing, in part, out of a popular affection for the various regional cultures across the American territories, the "realist movement" includes a wide range of works and themes, each of which attempts to "tell the truth in one arena or another. In this unit you will discover the humor of Mark Twain, "Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope," and the dark musings of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the social critic of the "Gilded Age." You will read Henry James' "Daisy Miller," the work that probed the innocence of Americans abroad, completely at odds with the codes of ancient aristocracy. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an influential light in the creation of the Provincetown Players, is best known for her poignant study of insanity, "The Yellow Wallpaper," performed on the theater. Celebrated for his psychological study of a Union soldier in the American Civil War, The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane introduced the stark literature of the naturalist that interprets the human experience in reference to its environment and animalistic roots.
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