British literature: Realism 1865-1914

1. The changes in America after the Civil War

- huge transcontinental expansion

- cities war transforming (sanitation, gas, electric lights, major rebuilding in some, urban transportation, modern architecture)

- education, literacy increased; books & journalism reached a wider range of readers

- the war left bitter memories & the innocent optimism gave way to a period of exhaustion

+ country morally exhausted + U.S. was now one nation + end of slavery

- Americans increasingly idealized progress & the self-made man (era of the millionaire manufacturer & speculator; survival of the fittest)

- business boomed (experience in the management of men and machines)

+ trans-American railway, transcontinental telegraph + enormous natural resources

- constant influx of immigrants (seemingly endless supply of cheap labor)

- massive industrial growth but also farming was doing well: vast amount of timber used, buffalo/ wild game gave way to cattle, sheep, farms, villages & cities (half of the population in towns)

- problems of urbanization and industrialization: poor & overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, low pay, difficult working conditions; strikes, labor unions, reform movements

2. The tendencies in literature.. - .. were realistic. The novels depicted the damage of economic forces & alienation of the weak individual; survivors endure through inner strength (individuality!)

- realism - man & society - naturalism - man as a biological being, there is no spiritual creation, value or control.

3. Mark Twain (1835-1910) aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens

- Pseudonym comes from the leadsman's cry to the pilot when water is safe, but barely safe, lies ahead (twain = two fathoms deep = kaks sülda vett kiilu all)

- wrote "Life on the Mississippi" based on his romantic memories; national fame came with "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches"; "The Innocents Abroad" was a tale of a tour in Europe and East; "The Gilded Age" showed the new morality of the Americans; "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" followed. (Also: "Tom Sawyer Abroad", "Tom Sawyer Detective", "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", "A Tramp Abroad", "The Prince and the Pauper")

- The Adventures of TS - two "bad boys", life on the Mississippi & in USA in the 19th century. The boys witness a murder & as the innocent Muff Potter is accused Tom gives evidence in court. H&T stalk Injun Joe (the murderer), Tom & Becky get lost in the caves where Joe is hiding, find the treasure, get out of cave, cave closed, Injun Joe dies in the caves. Elements of Realism (stagnant life of the small town) & Romanticism (the world of Tom and his friends)

- The Adventures of HF - considered as a sequel to TS. H is a boy who'll not accept the kinds of freedom the world is able to offer and flees -> symbol of man's inevitable, restless fight. H was adopted, his father abducted him, H flees, joins up with a runaway slave Jim. Along the way down Mississippi H learns about the evil of the world. He has a big moral problem - he has to return the slave but decides the slave is also a man & brakes the law. After that, he is already a grown man.

4. Jack London (1876-1916)

- the men who influenced him: Charles Darwin (scientist of evolution) - Earth was very old, all species evolved from sea; Herbert Spencer (philosopher of evolution) - the fit would survive; Friedrich Nietzche - struggle to be the "superman"; Karl Marx - The Communist Manifesto (philosophy of socialism)

- got his material from his work as a sailor, tramper, canner, oyster pirate, jute-mill worker, coal shoveler and from his adventure in Alaska during the gold rush.

- The Northern Stories are the fruit of London's material collected during the gold rush. The stories are: The Son of the Wolf, Children of the Frost, Love of Life, The Call of the Wild (dog Buck feels betrayed and goes back to the wild), White Fang (3/4 of wolf, bred like one, becomes domesticated), To Build a Fire (a man freezes to death in Alaska stupidly thinking he can build a fire whenever just because he has matches)

- Martin Eden - autobiographical novel, London's own struggles to overcome his lack of book-learning, to turn from a rough sailor to an educated man & author in 3 years. Ends with suicide.