Style
Rebecca Harding Davis' literary style is most commonly labeled as realism. Her literary works mark a transition from romanticism to literary realism. For instance, "Life on the Iron Mills" utilizes a realistic style comparable to writers in the height of American literary realism, which came two decades after the text was published. Although realism is the genre most prominently attached to Harding Davis' collective works, naturalism is also prevalent in her writing style. Naturalism is thematically linked to realism. Where realists, like Harding Davis, endeavor to depict reality, naturalists expand on that reality by approaching the scientific and or psychological influences on characters due to their environments. In Life in the Iron Mills, the two genres are blended to create a realistic depiction of the everyday life of iron mill worker Hugh Wolfe, as well as illustrate the effects of that environment on him. In addition to realism and naturalism, Harding Davis also published works employing such literary genres as the gothic and folklore.
Read more about this topic: Rebecca Harding Davis
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get—but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“I concluded that I was skilled, however poorly, at only one thing: marriage. And so I set about the business of selling myself and two children to some unsuspecting man who might think me a desirable second-hand mate, a man of good means and disposition willing to support another man’s children in some semblance of the style to which they were accustomed. My heart was not in the chase, but I was tired and there was no alternative. I could not afford freedom.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“A style does not go out of style as long as it adapts itself to its period. When there is an incompatibility between the style and a certain state of mind, it is never the style that triumphs.”
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971)