Mark Twain

What movement?

 

Mark Twain has been described to be part of the poetic movement American Realism, although some poetic analysts believe that he is part of the European Naturalism poetic movement by the writing style of his poems but due to the fact that Mark Twain is a American poet and his topics he mentioned in his poems where not those that where present in European Naturlism the large majority of people describe American Realism as Mark Twain's poetic movement.

 

What is the Poetic Movement American Realism?

 

American Realism is a style of art, literature and journalism that started in the mid 19th century and early 20th century. The movement spurred a new wave of literary ideas in the world of novels and poems, this was due a departure of old ideas in American literature and literature on a whole. The ideas of the old Romantic period, ideas such as fantasising about the world, religious ideas, romance mythology etc. were replaced by new ideas. Ideas such as writing about current world events, reflecting life of the city and the village writing about contemporary events these subjects were completely new in the world of literature. These new ideas in literature sparked completely new generes in the world of poetry, generes such as; nationalism, science fiction or politics which is another essential element of American Realism, how poets sometimes write more politically targeted pieces of poetry, for instance in protest of the government or in disgust of civil society. Mark Twain himself also has a good example of this, He wrote the poem O'Lord Our Father which was written in a form that looks down upon the popular civil ideas of war at the time (end 19th century). How war was seen as a good thing, how killing people committing genocides were not taboe, the poem O 'Lord Our Father discusses these topics in a way that it creates a parody of society of the time.

 

~Further indepth about O'Lord Our Father can be found in the tab 'Analysing Poems'