Realismus I - Phil.

Ringvorlesung Amerikanistik
Wintersemester 2005/06 – 23. Januar 2006
1. Politische, ökonomische und soziale Veränderungen im Gilded Age
Politik der reconstruction (1865-77):
- Wiedereingliederung der Südstaaten in die Union
- Offizielles Ende der Sklaverei – ab 1870 neue Diskriminierungen durch sog. „Jim Crow Laws“
(1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson: “separate but equal”)
- Materieller Wiederaufbau und Abenteurer und Glücksritter aus dem Norden („carpetbagger“)
Kontinentale Expansion:
- Manifest Destiny Ideologie
- Frontier und „Wilder Westen“
- 1890: „closing of the frontier“ und Ende der „Indianerkriege“ (Wounded Knee)
Industrialisierung:
- Umwandlung von der Agrar- zur modernen Industriegesellschaft
- Wirtschaftswachstum und –krisen
- Typ des Tycoon („robber barons“): John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, Jay
Gould
- Arbeiterunruhen: u.a. “Haymarket Riot” (1886) in Chicago
- Schwache Gewerkschaften
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919): Triumphant Democracy (1886)
- Stahlimperium
- Beeinflusst von Herbert Spencer: „survival of the fittest“
- Reichtum als soziale Verpflichtung: bedeutender Philantrop und Kunstmäzen
Massenimmigration:
- Einwohner USA 1860: 31 Mill. – 1900: 76 Mill.
- Zwischen 1870 und 1899 wandern ca. 12 Millionen Menschen ein
- Neue Einwanderung: Russland, Polen, Italien, SO-Europa, Juden
- Nativistische Tendenzen: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) und Gewalttaten
Urbanisierung:
- Um 1860 lebten 20 % der Amerikaner in der Stadt, 1900 bereits 40,5 %.
- Urbane Kultur
- „skyscraper“
- Von der Produzenten- zur Konsumentengesellschaft
- Probleme der Urbanisierung: Slumbildung, Armut, Obdachlosigkeit, Prostitution, Kriminalität
Jacob August Riis (1849-1914): How the Other Half Lives (1890)
- Polizeireporter, Schriftsteller, Sozialreformer
- Dokumentation der Lebensbedingungen der Einwanderer und Armen in Wort und Bild
- Zusammenhang Armut und Verbrechen
Politisches System und Regierung:
- Laissez-faire-Politik
- Schwache Präsidenten, Korruption, Affären
- Macht in den Händen der „Bosse“ und „robber barons“
- Aufkommende Boulevardpresse: John Pulitzer und William Randolph Hearst („You furnish the
picture and I’ll furnish the war,“ zugeschrieben)
Imperialistische Außenpolitik:
- Ablösung der “Monroe-Doktrin” (1823; Schlagwort: “Amerika den Amerikanern”)
- 1898 Spanisch-Amerikanischer Krieg (patriotisches Schlagwort: „Remember the Maine“)
Realismus I: Vom Bürgerkrieg zur Jahrhundertwende
Günter Beck
2. Realismus und Literatur
- Verhältnis von Kunst und Wirklichkeit
- Begriff der „Mimesis“ (Aristoteles, Poetik)
- Erich Auerbach: „die Interpretation des Wirklichen durch literarische Darstellung“
- Kultureller und historischer Wandel des Wirklichkeitsverständnisses
- Roland Barthes: „Realismuseffekt“ (effet de réel)
- Begriff „Realismus“: klassifizierend, beschreibend, ideologische-polemisch
- Abkehr von Romantik: Gegenwart, Alltag, Objektivierung, psychologische Charakterstudie,
Rationalität, gesprochene Sprache etc.
- Realismus als Epoche: Frankreich ca. 1830-80 (Stendahl, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave
Flaubert, Edmonde und Jules Goncourt) – Großbritannien ca. 1830-80 (Charles Dickens,
William M. Thackeray, George Eliot, Brontë-Schwestern) – deutsche Literatur ca. 1850-90
(C.F. Meyer, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Gottfried Keller) – Russland ca. 184090 (Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Gončarov, Leo Tostoi, Fjodor Dostoevskij)
- Hintergrund und Einflüsse: Auguste Comte (Positivismus), Karl Marx (philosophischer
Materialismus), Charles Darwin (Evolutionsbiologie) und anderes: Photographie,
Eisenbahn etc.
3 „Imagining and Managing Social Change“: Der literarische Markt
- Alphabetisierung
- Realismus: „strategy for imagining and managing the threats of social change“ (Amy
Kaplan)
- Romane und short stories lösen Lyrik als bedeutendes literarisches Medium ab
- Zeitschriften und Magazine: Atlantic, Harper’s, Scribner’s: nationale Verbreitung
- Berufsschriftstellertum
4. William Dean Howells und der amerikanische Realismus (ca. 18651900)
- William Dean Howells, „Dean of American Letters“ (1837-1920) Romane, short stories,
Gedichte, Dramen, autobiographische Schriften, Reiseberichte, literaturkritische Schriften.
- Einfluss und Abgrenzung gegen Europa
- Essay „Henry James, Jr.“ (1882) als Manifest des amerikanischen Realismus
- Ablehnung und Angriff auf die Romantiker „Mr. James stood at the dividing ways of the novel
and the romance … But doubtless, he had chosen wisely; perhaps the romance is an outworn form,
and would not lend itself to the reproduction of even the ideality of modern life.”
- Alltäglichkeiten als Quelle der realistischen Literatur
- Charakter wichtiger als plot, Personencharakterisierung statt (melo-)dramatischer action
- Ablehnung von Moralismus, Realismus als Ausdruck der Demokratie
- Rücknahme des Erzählerkommentars
- „Objektive“ Darstellungsweise in direkten Dialogen
- Vorzug des offenen Endes statt Scheinlösungen („happy ending“)
5. The Rise of Silas Lapham im Gilded Age
- 1884 erschienen in monatlichen Fortsetzungen im Century Magazine
- Etablieret den businessman in der amerikanischen Literatur
- Zwei Handlungsstränge: a) Aufstieg und Fall des Selfmademan Silas Lapham
b) “courtship scenario”
- Kritik an romances: „Why can’t they let people have a chance to behave reasonably in stories?“
- Gesellschaftskritik
- Kritik an Wirtschaftsmoral
“Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material.” William Dean Howells, “The Editor’s Study: Effectism”, Harper’s (Nov. 1889)
“Realism, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.” Ambrose Bierce, The
Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
Andrew Carnegie. Triumphant Democracy; or, Fifty Years’ March of the Republic. (1886)
William Dean Howells, “Henry James, Jr.” Century Magazine (1882)
It is in the cities that the change from colonial conditions is greatest. [They are] the
The art of fiction has, in fact, become a finer art in our day than it was with Dickens
result of design instead of being allowed …to "just grow." … These are provided with and Thackeray. We could not suffer the confidential attitude of the later now, nor the
parks at intervals for breathing spaces; amply supplied with pure water, in some cases at mannerism of the former, …. These great men are of the past – they and their methods
enormous expense; the most modern ideas are embodied in their sanitary and interests; … The new school … studies human nature much more in its wonted
arrangements; they are well lighted, well policed, and the fire departments are very aspects, and finds its ethical and dramatic examples in the operation of lighter but not
efficient. … The variety and quality of the food of the people of America excels that really less vital motives. The moving accident is certainly not its trade; and it prefers to
found elsewhere, and is a constant surprise to Europeans visiting the States. The avoid all manner of dire catastrophes. … This school, which is so largely of the future as
Americans are the best-fed people on the globe. … Such is the Democracy; such its well as the present, finds its chief exemplar in Mr. James; it is he who is shaping and
conditions of life. … Where have monarchical institutions developed a community so directing American fiction, at least. … Will the reader be content to accept a novel which
delightful in itself, so intelligent, so free from crime or pauperism—a community in which is an analytic study rather than a story, which is apt to leave him arbiter of the destiny of
the greatest good of the greatest number is so fully attained, and one so well calculated the author’s creations? Will he find his account in the unflagging interest of their
to foster the growth of self-respecting men—which is the end civilization seeks? … development? Mr. James’s growing popularity seems to suggest that this may be the
Hereditary dignities, political inequalities, do infringe the right of man, and hence are not case;…
to be tolerated. The true democrat must live the peer of his fellows, or die struggling to
William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)
become so. The American citizen has no further need to struggle, being in possession of Silas’ Karriere: “I guess you wouldn’t want my life without the money,” said Lapham, as if
equality under the laws in every particular. He has not travelled far in the path of genuine he were willing to prolong these moments of preparation. “Take ‘em both,” Bartley
Democracy who would not scorn to enjoy a privilege which was not the common suggested. “Don’t want your money without your life, if you come to that. But you’re just
birthright of all his fellows.
one million times more interesting to the public than if you hadn’t a dollar …” … “For I
Jacob Riis. How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. (1890)
was bound to be an American of some sort, from the word Go! … Well, say I’m fifty-five
Long ago it was said that "one half of the world does not know how the other half years old; and I’ve lived ‘em, too; not an hour of waste time about me, anywheres! I was
lives." That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on born on a farm and – … “I … picked up what jobs I could get. I worked round at the sawtop cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate of those who were underneath, so mills, and I was ostler awhile at the hotel … I wa’n’t exactly a college graduate, and I
long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat. (Introduction)
went to school odd times. I got to driving the stage after while, and by and by I bought
What squalor and degradation inhabit these dens the health officers know. Through the stage and run the business myself. Then I hired the tavern-stand, and…”
the long summer days their carts patrol “the Bend,” scattering disinfectants in streets and Bartley Hubbards zynischer Zeitungskommentar über Silas Karriere;
lanes, in sinks and cellars, and hidden hovels where the tramp burrows. From midnight „Mr. Lapham,“ he wrote, „passed rapidly over the story of his early life, his poverty and
till far into the small hours of the morning the policeman’s thundering rap on closed its hardships, sweetened, however, by the ecollections of a devoted mother, and a father
doors is heard, with his stern command, “Apri port!” on his rounds gathering evidence of who, if somewhat her inferior in education, was no less ambitious for the advancement
illegal overcrowding. The doors are opened unwillingly enough – but the order means of his children. They were quiet, unpretentious people, religious, after the fashion of that
business, and the tenant knows it even if he understands no word of English … In a time, and of sterling morality, and they taught their children the simple virtues of the Old
room not thirteen feet either-way slept twelve men and women, two or three in bunks set Testament and poor Richard’s Almanac.”
in a sort of alcove, the rest on the floor. A kerosene lamp burned dimly in the fearful
atmosphere, probably to guide other and later arrivals to their “beds,” for it was only just Literatur:
Bell, Michael D. The Problem of American Realism: Studies in the Cultural History of a Literary Idea.
past midnight. A baby’s fretful wail came from an adjoining hall-room, where, in the semiChicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.
darkness, three recumbent figures could be made out. The “apartment” was one of three Carter, Everett. Howells and the Age of Realism. Philadelphia: lippincott, 1954.
in two adjoining buildings we had found …similarly crowded. Most of the men were Fluck, Winfried. Inszenierte Wirklichkeit: Der amerikanische Realismus. Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1991.
lodgers, who slept there for five cents a spot. (Ch. VI “The Bend”)
Kaplan, Amy. The Social Construction of American Realism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988.
Pizer, Donald. Hg. The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism. Cambridge:
CambridgeUP, 1995.