Realism, Romanticism, and Naturalism

Paper Summary:

This paper summarizes, compares and analyzes works by Honore de Balzac, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Gustav Flaubert. The paper explains that all three authors wished to encourage their readers to live their lives more fully and in a more heightened fashion, by becoming more conscious of the details of the world around them, but that each author had his own unique approach to doing this. The paper illustrates their different approaches through analysis of a work from each of the authors.

From the Paper:

"To teach the reader to be a more critical reader of society, throughout Balzac's story, to underline the realistic nature of the tale, Balzac functions as an authoritative commentator on the society and behavior of the world he creates for the reader: "I forgave her stifled laugh." (Balzac 4) Even a reader unfamiliar with the society of Balzac's Paris can appreciate the spectacle of pampered daughters kept by an ugly and social-climbing man, daughters whose manners are taught and forced, rather than natural, although at times Balzac's presence as a narrator can feel oppressive, rather than merely instructive."

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