Historical Realism: Hegel

Historical realism requires the writers critical knowledge of the historicist who
has a different interpretation of the historical events. Hegels dialectical theory

affected many thinkers concerned with social issues. Both realist and modernist
writers wanted to reflect the very changes in their societies in their own ways. In
that way, history is of great deal to literature and many literary artists preoccupied
themselves with historical materials. In the treatment of history, realist writers
have accused society, like what the naturalists did, of being the responsible of
the confusion and contradiction in which their heroes, often typical for suffering
individuals who struggle against the mainstream ideas and wrong, or at least
new, beliefs, find themselves. They show us both the environment, factors that
affect people and values that dominate the very spirits of the individuals and
picture us a typical end they drag themselves to out of their free will which has
been affected by what they see and what they come to believe in causing new
emergent ideologies and believes that evoke new social formation and raise
contradictions as a result of the hegemonic behaviors of the dominant class over
the subservient one. Moreover, literary works tend to reflect a specific historical
moment that is of great significance to the writer or the world in which he lives.
Wilfred L. Guerin, along with others, as an explanation of what has been said,
states that:
Although the historical-biographical approach has been evolving over many
years, its basic tenets are perhaps most clearly articulated in the writings of the
nineteenth-century French critic H. A. Taine, whose phrase race, milieu, et
moment, elaborated in his History of English Literature, bespeaks a heredity and
environmental determinism. Put simply, this approach sees a literary work
chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its authors life and times or the life
and times of the characters in the work.17
Far from reflecting what happened to the coming generation, historical novel,
which is the best emblem of historical realism, is considered to be good only on
the basis of its truth as mentioned in the Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary
Theory "though writing fiction, the good historical novelist reaches his or her
chosen period thoroughly and strives for verisimilitude".18. Examples of historical
novelists are: Balzac, Stendhal and Thomas Mann in Europe, Charles
Dickens,George Eliot and Thomas Hardy in Britain.
In his novel Le Rouge et le Noire, Standhal provides "an accurate and detailed
knowledge of the political situation, the social stratification, and the economic
circumstances of a perfectly definite historical moment, namely, that in which
France found itself just before the July Revolution..."19 to most of his scenes in
order to make them comprehensible and also The characters, attitudes, and
relationships of the dramatis personae, then, are very closely connected with
contemporary historical circumstances; contemporary political and social
conditions are woven into the action in a manner more detailed and more real
than had been exhibited in any earlier novel, and indeed in any works of literary
art except those expressly purporting to be politico-satirical, tracts.20 And we can
notice, in most of his novels, that the element of current history and politics is
too heavily emphasised...21
Realism is a historical product, because far from the writers talent for writing they
need to be influenced by a cause and pushed by surrounding factors that lead to
their creative production. Since it is so, they base their works on a real, truthful
and accurate event in addition to involving their ideologies and own comments to
give the work a power and not just reduce it to a documentary act of historical
recording. Its origin was in French where writers were influenced by the socio-
historical changes that took place due to the emerged scientific discoveries,
industrial revolution, the rising intellectuality and the search for wider knowledge
in every field in life.

1) Cyclical Theory:
History repeats itself; there is no real progress. This theory holds that history is a series
of patterns that recur in different forms around the world. Civilizations rise and fall, often for
similar reasons. Understanding history is about understanding patterns. For example, this is a
traditional model for understanding the dynastic history of Central Asia.
Such views were common in the ancient world -- Herodotus and
Thucydides suggested this. Ssu-Ma Chien, in China, believed in dynastic
cycles.
Mesoamerican civilizations believed in this.
During the Renaissance Petrarch and Machiavelli recycled the idea.
In modern times Toynbee and Spengler have also believed in it.

2) Linear Theory: History is about progress. The world is constantly improving and heading in
an ultimate direction. There are no real repetitions in history, although they may appear to exist
every once in a while. This theory is heavily based on the idea of cause and effect: "this
happened, and then that happened; that happened because this happened first.
w Followers of these theories believe in progress.
St. Augustine.
Ibn Khaldun
Voltaire
Karl Marx
w They believe that the world can made better.

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Historical realism requires the writers critical knowledge of the historicist who

has a different interpretation of the historical events. Hegels dialectical theory

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