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Article: Fontane and the programmatic realists: contrasting theories of the novel.(Theodor Fontane)
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 2008
- Author:
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Fontane's theory of the novel is more sophisticated and owes less to the ideas of the Programmatic Realists Julian Schmidt and Otto Ludwig than is generally thought. He rejects tendentiousness, undifferentiated speech, and schematic characterization, believing the novel should show a 'representation of interests' embodied in characters who blend individual and generic traits. And while Schmidt and Ludwig advocate transfiguration of subject-matter as a way of avoiding 'ugliness' and yielding morally prescriptive 'middle-class' fiction, for Fontane it is a way of shaping the social and cultural heterogeneity of reality, ugly and beautiful, without subordinating it to a ...