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Keith Fowler 15 September 2002 English 307 Mrs. Hughes American Realism Journal Entry #1 Realism is defined, in literary terms, as “a literary method and a particular range of subject”(H.H. A Handbook to literature). Realism’s prevalence emerged in the late 19th century as the new nation came into sight, born out of the ashes of the great American Civil War. Straying from the “less consciously artistic and more honest” Romantics, American Realist set out to encompass the turn of the century with their own unique style of rhetoric and vernacular. “Where romanticists transcend the immediate to find the ideal, and naturalists plumb the actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions, realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence” (H.H. A Handbook to Literature). In American literature, the term “realism” encompasses the period of time from 1865 to the turn of the century during which such famous authors as Mark Twain, Rebecca Harding Davis, Sarah Orne Jewett, Jack London, Henry James and others w