Victorian Prose and Poetry, by Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom. Specifically, it will discuss Realism and compromise in Victorian Literature. How do Victorian writers search for realistic compromises with the world around them?

VICTORIAN LITERATURE

In Victorian literature, Realism followed the age of Romanticism, and Realism quickly evolved into Naturalism, practiced by many authors of the time, including Jack London, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Sinclair Lewis. "There was a time when the intellectual and spiritual life of Europe as a whole was dominated by neo-classicism; it was dominated in the next era by Romanticism; and then it was dominated by Realism, which developed into Naturalism" (Baker 58). Realism in literature attempted to portray things as they really were, scientifically and without emotion, placing man in balance with nature.

The task of realism, Howells felt, was to defend "the people" against its adversaries. The realist, he wrote, "feels...
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