Realism is a word that can be used in many different ways. It is used mainly in the arts to describe the way that writers, musicians, painters etc. thought in the late 19th century. These artists were trying to show the world as it really is, instead of trying to escape to a world of fantasy, which is what the Romantics had been doing. The Realists wanted to give an accurate description of Nature and of the way people lived in society. Realism in literature was a movement which started in Germany. The poet and writer Heinrich Heine tried in his books to accept the world as it is instead of trying to escape from it. Realistic writers tried to find good things about society.
The interest in Realism led to a movement called Naturalism. This meant describing scenes in nature accurately. The novelist Emile Zola was a Naturalist.

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