81TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)Q How, in Mill’s view, does the relationship
between male and female differ from that of
master and slave?
Q What does Mill consider to be the “peculiar
character” of modernism?Realism in Literature
CHAPTER 30 Industry, Empire, and the Realist Style 81Book5 81course of history, and the tendencies of progressive human
society afford not only no presumption in favor of this system
of inequality of rights, but a strong one against it; and that, so
far as the whole course of human improvement up to this time,
the whole stream of modern tendencies warrants any 50
inference on the subject, it is that this relic of the past is
discordant with the future and must necessarily disappear.
For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world—the
difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions,
modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times
long past? It is, that human beings are no longer born to their
place in life and chained down by an inexorable bond to the
place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties
and such favorable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which
may appear to them most desirable. Human society of old was 60
constituted on a very different principle. All were born to a
fixed social position and were mostly kept in it by law or
interdicted from any means by which they could emerge from
it. As some men are born white and others black, so some
were born slaves and others freemen and citizens; some were
born patricians, others plebeians; some were born feudal
nobles, others commoners....
The old theory was that the least possible should be left to
the choice of the individual agent; that all he had to do should,
as far as practicable, be laid down for him by superior wisdom. 70
Left to himself he was sure to go wrong. The modern
conviction, the fruit of a thousand years of experience, is that
things in which the individual is the person directly interested
never go right but as they are left to his own discretion; and
that any regulation of them by authority, except to protect the
rights of others, is sure to be mischievous....The New Historicism
While issues of class and gender preoccupied some of
the finest minds of the nineteenth century, so too did
matters surrounding the interpretation of the historical
past. For many centuries, history was regarded as a branch
of literature rather than a social science. The Romantic his-
tories, such as those of Thomas Carlyle (see chapter 28),
served to emphasize the role of great men in shaping the
destinies of nations. At the same time, the spirit of high
patriotism inspired nineteenth-century historians such as
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) in Britain and
Fustel de Coulanges (1830–1889) in France to write
nationalistic histories that brought attention to the great-
ness of their own people and culture.
Patriotism, however, also led historians to renew their
efforts to retrieve the evidence of the past. Scholars com-
piled vast collections of primary source materials; and,
enamored of the new, positivist zeal for objective measure-
ment and recording, they applied scientific methods to thewriting of history. The result was an effort to recreate his-
tory “as it actually was,” a movement later called histori-
cism. Led by the German historian Leopold von Ranke
(1795–1886), historians produced historical works that
depended on the objective interpretation of eyewitness
reports and authentic documents. Von Ranke himself
wrote sixty volumes on modern European history that rest-
ed on the critical study of sources that he had gleaned from
numerous archives. This method of writing history came to
dominate modern-day historiography.
The new historicism that scholars brought to the
critical study of religious history stirred great controversy.
Rejecting all forms of supernaturalism, some nineteenth-
century scholars disputed the literal interpretation of the
Bible, especially where its contents conflicted with scien-
tific evidence (as in the case of the Virgin Birth). Since the
facts of Jesus’ life are so few, some also questioned the his-
toricity of Jesus (that is, whether or not he had ever actu-
ally lived), while still others—such as the eminent French
scholar Ernest Renan, author of the Life of Jesus(1863)—
questioned his divinity. Renan and his followers offered a
rationalist reconstruction of religious history that worked
to separate personal belief and moral conduct from con-
ventional religious history and dogma. As universal educa-
tion spread throughout the literate world, Church and
state moved further apart, and education became increas-
ingly secularized.The Novels of Dickens and Twain
Inequities of class and gender had existed throughout the
course of history, but in an age that pitted the progressive
effects of industrial capitalism against the realities of
poverty and inequality, social criticism was inevitable.
Many writers pointed to these conditions and described
them with unembellished objectivity. This unblinking
attention to contemporary life and experience was the
basis for the style known asliterary realism.
More than any other genre, the nineteenth-century
novel—by its capacity to detail characters and condi-
tions—fulfilled the Realist credo of depicting life with
complete candor. In place of heroic and exotic subjects, the
Realist novel portrayed men and women in actual, every-
day, and often demoralizing situations. It examined the
social consequences of middle-class materialism, the plight
of the working class, and the subjugation of women, among
other matters.
While Realism did not totally displace Romanticism as
the dominant literary mode of the nineteenth century, it
often appeared alongside the Romantic—indeed,
Romantic and sentimental elements can be found in gen-
erally realistic narratives. Such is the case in the novels of
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) in England and Mark
Tw ain, the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
(1835–1910), in America. Tw ain’s writings, including his
greatest achievement, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
reveal a blend of humor and irony that is not generallyBK5_001-141.indd 81BK5_001-141.indd 81 04/12/2009 8:55 AM04/12/2009 8:55 AM