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Notes:

1. Nourished by the political and social aspirations of the middle class, nationalism and colonialism came to dominate the nineteenth century in Europe.
2. Though its first literary use was in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century, the term realism did not become a commonly accepted literary and artistic slogan until French critics began to use it in the 1850s.
3. Though the realist program made innumerable subjects available to art, it narrowed the themes and methods of literature.
4. Contrary to what they might think, realist writers did not make a complete break with past literary conventions, nor did they follow "to the letter" the theories and slogans they propounded.
5. As prose looked outward at the world around it, poetry looked inward at its very construction as language.
6. Inspired by Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil, Symbolism's manifesto appeared in 1886, thereby not including the great midcentury poems by Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and MallarmÈ.

Text:
* blue words within the text indicate important notes to remember

1. The upheavals following the French Revolution overturned the old order of Europe. The Holy Roman Empire and the Papal States were dissolved. Nourished by the political and social aspirations of the middle class, nationalism and colonialism came to dominate the nineteenth century in Europe. After centuries of dreaming, political unification was achieved in both Germany and Italy. The Industrial Revolution transformed living conditions. Though wealth and prosperity were more widespread than in centuries past, many Europeans lived and worked in wretched, often inhumane conditions.
2. Though its first literary use was in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century, the term realism did not become a commonly accepted literary and artistic slogan until French critics began to use it in the 1850s. Realism is frequently confused with naturalism, an ancient philosophical term for types of secularism. The realists used inductive, observational, and "objective" methods in an effort to capture a truthful representation in literature of reality, especially contemporary life and manners. The personality or style of the author was to recede behind the fiction. Analogous movements occurred elsewhere in Europe: the Young Germany movement, the "natural" school of Russian fiction, and Italian verismo. These critical programs were eventually accepted in English-speaking countries such as England and the United States.
3. In their work, realist authors tended to be highly critical of political and social situations. Though the realist program made innumerable subjects available to art, it narrowed the themes and methods of literature. Realism condemned the fantastic, the historical, the remote, the idealized, the unsullied, and the idyllic. Realism was less successful in its effort to capture objective and impersonal truth than it was in its efforts to reinvest art and literature with social accountability and to challenge the conventions of Romanticism.
4. Contrary to what they might think, realist writers did not make a complete break with past literary conventions, nor did they follow "to the letter" the theories and slogans they propounded. At least half of Gustave Flaubert's works were Romantic fantasies of blood and gold, flesh and jewels. Fyodor Dostoevsky was a writer of high tragedy in which ordinary reality was transformed into a symbol of the spiritual world. Though Leo Tolstoy's work is more concretely real, it is also very personal and autobiographical. Henrik Ibsen wrote historical and fantastic dramas before turning to a more symbolist style. Anton Chekhov's attitude toward his characters is more detached and "objective" than that of his fellow Russian writers Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. With the exception of one early novel, Chekhov wrote only short stories and plays.
5. The later nineteenth century was also a period of anti-Romanticism in poetry. The Symbolists embarked on an exploration of language that would influence not only twentieth-century poetry, but other literary and art forms as well. As prose looked outward at the world around it, poetry looked inward at its very construction as language.
6. Inspired by Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil, Symbolism's manifesto appeared in 1886, thereby not including the great mid-century poems by Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and MallarmÈ. Symbolist poets attempted to manipulate language so as to evoke meanings that are hidden behind the appearance of this world. To them, a symbol is an image or cluster of images that suggest a plane of reality that cannot be expressed in more direct or rational terms.