Literature focused on keeping true with tangible things, like dialect, and emotional things, like motivation. It did not embellish things, instead telling them as they were.
With post-impressionism, a new "stream of thought" style was introduced, where a main character would tell the book by simply telling what was happening, what thoughts were going on, no real embellishment of plot. Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an author. Despite how often he exaggerated things, he stayed true to the motivation of humans, as well as real life experiences. He shows his cynical but humor-filled outlook on life with this quote: "When your friends flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old." This quote also shows how he wasn't afraid to joke about topics like old age and tricky compliments. Mark Twain was actually a pen name for Samuel Clemens. He wrote many famous books under this pen name, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Before he was a writer, he was a riverboat pilot. He said that piloting steamboats gave him the best opportunity to meet all kinds of personalities, and from them, he was able to really flesh out every character in every story. He loved steamboat piloting a lot, so much so that his pen name, "Mark Twain," means "twelve feet of water" in steamboat-speak. (Twelve feet is the depth at which the water is safe for a steamboat.) Mark Twain's classics are still read today, and are often read in classrooms as an example of important literature. Another influential author of the time wrote a series that, more recently, was translated to three TV shows and a massive fandom. That series is, of course, Sherlock Holmes, and the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) wrote Sherlock Holmes about a man who called himself the world's first (and only) consulting detective. It is told through the eyes of John, Sherlock's flatmate, who is amazed by Sherlock's seemingly magical powers of crime solving. By the end of each story, however, it is shown how the predictability of human nature and the keen eye of a careful observer eliminate all impossible solutions until one remains. Every detail in the stories is planned out according to real facts and true human nature, so the stories and Sherlock's deductions make sense. This was important to make the story exciting, because it was meant to make you feel like a real life person, with enough talent and study, really could do what Sherlock did. His influence is shown through the massive fandom, large amounts of merchandise, and multiple TV shows based off his stories. |