Realism as a movement began in painting circles as a reaction to the romantic movement. In painting, this means to represent an object exactly as it appears in life. This school of painting hit France in the 19th Century. Romanticism is a much more highly subjective approach to art which is very intense, emotional or dreamlike.
The movement moved from art to literature with authors such as Balzac and Flaubert from France. From France to England with Writer George Eliot "giving a faithful representation to commonplace things" in her novel, Adam Bede.
From England to America through the writings of Henry James, William Dean Howells, and Mark Twain, the idea of a person simply being a perons catches on. Realist writiers attempt to set down the common-place occurrences in life objectively without writing around pre-conceived notions or ideals. These novels are fairly true-to-life accounts which focus on middle-class life.
The best example of realism in American Liture that I can think of is The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. This novel was written late in the realist period and described the life of a factory worker in turn-of-the-century Chicago.
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