Abstract
?Realism' is a cultural movement that became predominant in the middle of the XIXth century. It is an aesthetic mode which aimed at showing life "as it is". Realism, in literature, refers to the insistence of representing reality without embellishment. Leading realist writers were Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert and George Eliot or Tolstoy. The genre most closely associated with realism is ?the novel'. The work of realist writers was related to the tradition of the Enlightenment as realism sought to attain rationality and a scientific precision. Realist writers focused their work on commonplace subjects like psychological misery, madness or the bourgeois (middle class).
