Literature of the 19th century refers to world literature produced during the 19th century. The range of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from (roughly) 1799 to 1900. Many of the developments in literature in this period parallel changes in the visual arts and other aspects of 19th-century culture.
Literary realism
Literary realism is the trend, beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors, toward depictions of contemporary life and society as it was, or is. In the spirit of general "realism", realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.
Anglophones
Lionel Stevenson wrote that "The most explosive impact in English literature during the nineteenth century is unquestionably Thomas Carlyle's. From about 1840 onward, no author of prose or poetry was immune from his influence."
George Eliot's novel Middlemarch stands as a great milestone in the realist tradition. It is a primary example of nineteenth-century realism's role in the naturalization of the burgeoning capitalist marketplace.
William Dean Howells was the first American author to bring a realist aesthetic to the literature of the United States. His stories of 1850s Boston upper-crust life are highly regarded among scholars of American fiction. His most popular novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham, depicts a man who falls from materialistic fortune by his own mistakes. Stephen Crane has also been recognized as illustrating important aspects of realism to American fiction in the stories Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and The Open Boat.[1][2]
Latin American Literature
Adventure novels about the gold rush in Chile in the 1850s, such as Martin Rivas by Alberto Blest Gana, and the gaucho epic poem Martin Fierro by Argentine José Hernández are among the iconic and populist 19th century literary works written in Spanish, published in Latin America.
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