The Morality of Realism (Coffin 778-779)

There seems to be a contradiction in the way the textbook presents realism. While the textbook explains that “realism’s focus on the material world owed much to the ideals of nineteenth-century science, which seemed to cut through traditional moral and philosophical concerns in pursuit of empirical facts,” it also says that realists had a “sympathy for the poor and dispossessed” and offered up “sharp critique[s] of contemporary society” (all quotes from page 779). How can this be resolved? Though many realists claimed that the pursuit of realism was an end in of itself, I think most used realism as a means to revealing the nature of humanity or exposing the problems of society. In literature, true, accurate realism suggests a physical and emotional removal of the author and narrator from the plot, but many writers wrote sympathetically of the lower class characters in their novels and gave more than a little support to the idea of justice and equality for everyone. Perhaps such a removal is easier accomplished in painting or sculpture, but the artists were still making a judgment by choosing the subject matter they did. Whether a painting of a beggar or a novel about a prostitute, the choice of subject matter, if not the subject matter itself, was subjective. The very act of portraying something in a realist way was subjective. Basically, I don’t think “moral and philosophical concerns” were divorced from realism but, rather, were inherent to the school of thought.