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This essay recovers a once celebrated but now forgotten Filipino novel in English, Juan Cabreros Laya’s His Native Soil (1941), which marked the emergence of realism during the Philippine Commonwealth’s slow, decade-long transition to independence from the United States. Whereas the novel was originally praised as a landmark text in Philippine literature in English, His Native Soil was later dismissed by postwar critics as an imitative, formally flawed, and stylistically inferior work. Taking up Roberto Schwarz’s challenge to advance a reading practice that takes into account the difference between literature and social structure in the colonial periphery, I argue that rather than viewing His Native Soil ’s improbabilities of plot and tonal dissonances as artistic flaws, they are more meaningfully read as the author’s attempt to adapt the realist protocols of the bildungsroman to capture the double-edged nature of independence: the adoption of a trade policy that would economically bind together the Philippines and the United States and that would render political freedom impossible for Filipinos unless relations of colonial dependency were to be continued after independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This literary criticism considers how nineteenth-century American literary realism by authors including Edith Wharton, Henry James, and William Dean Howells, depicted aesthetics and pain in their works. Books considered include Wharton's "The House of Mirth," James' "The Wings of the Dove," and Howells' "The Rise of Silas Lapham."

A literary criticism of the book "Dhalgren" by Samuel R. Delaney is presented. According to the author, the novel's narrative strategies reveal to the reader his or her own process of constructing a character's identity based on racial markers while also critiquing this process. Topics discussed include social realism, racial signification, and reading practices.

Analyzes the intersection between literature and neuroscience in the late 19th century. Inclusion of literary realism in the physiological psychology; Biological functions of literary representation; Conception of reflex response.

Focuses on adoption of the realistic formulas popularized by Sir Walter Scott in the literary work of U.S.-based writer Nathaniel Beverley Tucker. Reflection of Scott's romantic realism in the book 'The Partisan Leader' by Tucker; Response of people towards the book; Demonstration of eternal verity in the book; Usage of authentic personages to serve prototypes for fictional creations; Effect of strictures on characters of the story.

Studies the presence of romance in the novels of Frank Norris. Analysis of the concept of realism; Reconciliation of the societal relationship with the romantic subordination of character to action; Attempt made by Norris to employ the naturalistic techniques of Zola.

Focuses on the purpose of literary works of U.S. essayist Benjamin Orange Flower. Reiteration of Flower's essays towards social reform; Principles followed by Flower for the perfectibility of man; Influence of idealistic literature and positivism on Flower's essays.

Lists research on literature as of November 1968. Rhetoric of morality; Naturalism, realism and romanticism; American narrative historical poetry.