Instant English

Analysing Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , the Era of Realism and Naturalism;   By 1875, American writers were moving toward realism in literature. The time span from 1870 to 1910 is called the Era of Realism and Naturalism in American Literature. In the era, there were two major movements that came into existence and flourished in American Literature that are called Realism and Naturalism. Before this era, American had been looking at the world through the optimistic filters of Romanticism and Transcendentalism. As a result of a big change because of the frontier and the Civil War, Americans started giving preference to writing and thinking about reality instead of imagined or fantastic ideas. Realism is a manner and method of composition by which the author describes normal, average life, in an accurate, truthful way. The movement focused on casual characters and daily life events and situations. For example, a realist story like Stephen Crane was ordinary and was

  “ Enlightenment ”                 The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement that dominated Europe during the 18th century, was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy and advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. At first, it emerged out of a European intellectual and scholarly movement known as Renaissance Humanism but later, it took over British and America into its shadow and today’s era, almost every country is influenced by the movement, or some of the movement. It is somehow the opposite of romanticism because some aspects of both philosophies are in contrast. The Enlightenment thinkers believed that human intelligence could be understood through nature and be enhanced by reasoning . They were sure that men can improve themselves through reasoning . That strongly denied the belief of puritans that man is full of sin or a sinful failure