Volume 1, Number 2 · June 1, 1963
Literary Realism
By Alfred Kazin
Documents of Modern Literary Realism
edited by George J. Becker
Princeton University Press, $8.50
'Realism' is a boring term now, fit only for textbooks. There are people who still use it with interest. But these are either literary scholars, who are concerned with the history of ideas, the history of forms, the history of a common way of seeing reality (which is what a literary movement represents)—or propagandists for art-with-a-purpose. No intelligent novelist worries about 'realism' any more; what it stood for in the 19th century has long since been absorbed into even the most indifferent and machine-produced literary entertainment for the masses. And when 'realism' is used to denote a positive ideal, as it is by people more interested in sociology than in literature, it is difficult to repress one's indignation at the thought of what 'realism' in the Soviet Union, where it is not a literary creed but the state religion, has done to honest writers.
Review, 1901 words
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