realism Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (6 ed.)
...realism In the philosophy of mathematics , mathematical realism maintains that mathematical objects and concepts exist independent of human knowledge; such a philosophy is mathematical Platonism . Anti-realist philosophies include formalism and structuralism...
realism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Mind (2 ed.)
... . Realism as a philosophical term generally refers to the doctrine that objects exist independently of sensory experience. The essential problem of perception is to account for how we experience things which exist in the time and space of the real world. ‘Naive’ or ‘direct’ realism suggests that we experience objects as they are by a kind of direct awareness comparable with intuitive understanding of mathematics. This is very different from theories which suppose that perceptions are hypotheses. Realism may be contrasted with idealism . (Published...
realism Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Music (6 ed.)
... Operatic style in which the plot or characters are said to be ‘true to life’ ( verismo ) as distinct from...
realism Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Philosophical doctrine according to which universal concepts, as well as tangible things, exist in their own right, outside the human mind that recognizes or perceives them. The idea developed from a medieval view that ‘universals’ are real entities rather than simply names for things. Realism was thus opposed to nominalism . Some philosophers rejected this view in favour of moderate realism, which held that ‘universals’ exist only in the mind of God. See also ...
realism Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (4 ed.)
... A broad tendency in literature that emphasizes fidelity to the observable and complex facts of life, in contradistinction to the idealized or simplified representations of romance or melodrama . It is associated particularly with prose fiction and drama since the mid-19th century. Literary realism of the 19th century was a major international tendency (although not quite a ‘movement’, except in the French realism that evolved into the naturalism of Zola ) in fiction under the influences of Honoré de Balzac , Stendhal , and Gustave Flaubert ; and...
Realism Reference library
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.)
...by the system of Stanislavsky and by the later advocates of naturalism , the logical outcome of realism. ( See also SOCIALIST REALISM ....
realism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
... 1. In everyday usage, a common-sense recognition of practical realities (often contrasted with idealism ). 2. ( aesthetic realism ) Sometimes synonymous with naturalism or illusionism . The usage of this term varies in relation to the aesthetic movements, theoretical frameworks, and media with which it is associated—so there are many different ‘realisms’, though a common realist goal is ‘to show things as they really are’. Realism tends to be defined in opposition to other terms (especially romanticism , idealization , artifice,...
realism Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4 ed.)
... The term ‘realism’ is used in a variety of ways. In its most general sense, realism can be opposed to ‘idealism’ to mean a philosophical doctrine of the reality of the external world as independent of mind as against the idealistic view that it is constituted by consciousness. In post-Enlightenment thought, Kant attempted to defend a form of realism (‘transcendental realism’) against the encroachment of speculative metaphysics by arguing that our perception of the external world is dependent on general conceptions of space, time, causality, and so on...
realism Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (3 ed.)
... The doctrine in philosophy that universals have a real existence, over and above the individual entities that they subsume. Plato ’s theory of forms or ‘ideas’ is characteristic. Distinguished in the Middle Ages from the opposite doctrine of nominalism...
Realism Reference library
Lilian R. Furst
The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States
... Cather were heirs to realism in their novels of social observation. See also Naturalism . René Wellek , The Concept of Realism in Literary Scholarship, in Concepts of Criticism , ed. Stephen J. Nichols, Jr. (1963), pp. 222–255. George J. Becker , ed., Documents of Modern Literary Realism (1963). F. W. J. Hemmings , ed., The Age of Realism (1974). George Levine , The Realistic Imagination (1981). Warner Berthoff , The Ferment of Realism: American Literature, 1844–1919 (1981). John Vernon , Money and Fiction: Literary Realism in the Nineteenth and...
realism Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (4 ed.)
...realism passes over into the movement of naturalism , in which sociological investigation and determinist views of human behaviour predominate. Realism also established itself as an important tradition in the theatre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in the work of Henrik Ibsen , Bernard Shaw , and others; and it remains a standard convention of film and television drama. Despite the radical attempts of modernism to displace the realist emphasis on external reality (notably in the movements of expressionism and surrealism ), realism...
realism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to English Literature (7 ed.)
...pre-dating that major phase of realism, exemplify many of its features, while those of Henry James , while not dealing with provincial penury, extend realist methods with new technical sophistication towards a ‘psychological realism’ that was further developed by modernism . The tradition survived into the 20th century, for example in the novels of E. M. Forster and Winifred Holtby , the early novels of D. H. Lawrence and of George Orwell , and the novels and stories of Somerset Maugham . The tradition of realism in English drama is less...
realism Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Broad term in art history, often interchangeable with naturalism . It is frequently used to define art that tries to represent objects accurately and without emotional bias. It also denotes a movement in 19th-century French art, led by Gustave Courbet , that revolted against conventional, historical or mythological subjects and focused on unidealized scenes of modern life. Superrealism is a 20th-century movement, in which real objects are depicted in very fine detail so that the overall effect appears unreal. See also socialist ...
realism ((classical)) Quick reference
Allison McQueen
A Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations (4 ed.)
... (classical) Classical realism is a variant of realism in international relations theory and is most strongly associated with the work of twentieth-century thinkers such as E. H. Carr , George Kennan, and Hans Morgenthau , among others. Like all IR realists, classical realists take conflict to be an ineradicable feature of international politics and explain outcomes by appealing to the darker features of human nature (e.g. propensity to act on fear, the drive to dominate), the ordering principle of anarchy , the distribution of power (e.g. ...
Realism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English
...among other things, that Dostoevsky had begun to leave the shared world of realism behind. In nineteenth-century painting realism refers to the work of Courbet and others, and reflects a new interest in ordinary life and in working people, a reaction against the grandiose historical subjects which had dominated earlier art. Inherent in all forms of realism is the idea of a corrected view or assumption, a response to an exaggerated romanticism, idealism, or sentimentalization. Realism, even in vague and everyday uses, is always an argument, suggesting that some...
realism Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of Art (3 ed.)
...The term Social Realism has been applied to 19th- and 20th-century works that are realistic in this second sense and make overt social or political comment. It is to be distinguished from Socialist Realism , the name given to the type of art that was officially promoted in the Soviet Union and some other Communist countries; far from implying a critical approach to social questions, it involved toeing the Party line in an academic style. Magic Realism and Superrealism are names given to two 20th-century styles in which extreme realism—in the sense of...
realism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Film Studies (2 ed.)
...film theorists ( see phenomenology and film ; film-philosophy ). See also naturalism ; verisimilitude . Further Reading: Armstrong, Richard Understanding Realism (2005). Lapsley, Robert and Westlake, Michael ‘Realism’, Film Theory: An Introduction 156–81 (1988). Nagib, Lucia and Mello, Cecilia Realism and the Audiovisual Media (2009). Williams, Christopher Realism and the Cinema: A Reader ...
realism Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (5 ed.)
...The term Social Realism has been applied to 19th- and 20th-century works that are realistic in this second sense and make overt social or political comment. It is to be distinguished from Socialist Realism , the name given to the type of art that was officially promoted in the Soviet Union and some other Communist countries; far from implying a critical approach to social questions, it involved toeing the Party line in an academic style. Magic Realism and Superrealism are names given to two 20th-century styles in which extreme realism—in the sense of...
Realism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to American Literature (6 ed.)
...and no chronological point may be indicated as the beginning of realism, but the 19th century is considered to mark its origin as a literary movement. The example of science, the influence of rational philosophy, the use of documentation in historical study, as well as the reaction against attenuated romanticism, all had their effect in creating the dominance of realism at this time. Although influenced by English and foreign authors, to a great extent the American transition from romance to realism in fiction was indigenous, but it occurred gradually. Frontier...
realism Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature (2 ed.)
...no chronological point may be indicated as the beginning of realism, but the nineteenth century is considered to mark its origin as a literary movement. The example of science, the influence of rational philosophy, the use of documentation in historical study, as well as the reaction against attenuated romanticism, all had their effect in creating the dominance of realism at this time. Although influenced by English and foreign authors, to a great extent the American transition from romance to realism in fiction was indigenous, but it occurred gradually....
