The Boundaries of Realism in World Literature

This study provides a broad examination of the use of realism in literature. In particular, the author analyzes the such writers as Thackeray, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Maupassant.

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This study is dedicated to a theoretical and critical examination of realism in literature. Proceeding from the mimetic theories of the era of antiquity, and then going on to explore formalists, structuralists, theories of possible worlds, and theories of simulation, Kvas points to the fictionality of (mimetic) realism, to literature and art as the creation of new, fictional aesthetic worlds, even when—as in the case of realism—there is a programmatic and practical inclination of such art and literature towards the world of the historical and the social, the real in the original sense of the word.

This book is a valuable theoretical and literary-critical contribution to shedding light on the issue of realism in literature. Kvas’s journey through recent theoretical literature, his linking, often polemical in character, of theoretical insights to analyses of literary works, his properly justified determining of the boundaries of the realistic literary method and its deviations into the realm of the fantastic or magic realism, will certainly help the readers of this book to confront, in a new and dependable manner, the issues of realism in literature and art.