The Romantic and Realist Paradox
Lessons from literary studies
For most of us, the opposite of realism in fiction is fantasy. Whereas realism represents life as dryly logical or devoid of magic, fantasy supplements that loss with tales of improbable creatures and phenomena.
Technically, however, the opposite of realism is not fantasy, but romance. I’ll talk about how genres of fiction like realism and romance correspond to outlooks in life — in this case, the two opposing outlooks of the realist and the romantic.
What are outlooks in life?
Outlooks in life are mental frameworks that give sense and structure to what a person perceives as “real” or the “truth.” We don’t perceive life in itself — that is, without the sense or structure we give it. In literary studies and related disciplines like philosophy, an unfiltered thing is called a thing in itself. It’s impossible to access the thing-in-itself, or to un-filter it, because the filter (or lens, bias, framework, outlook) through which we perceive, know, feel, or interpret the thing is mentally built in. The filter is automatically applied, and none of us can switch it off. The best a critical person can do is to be aware of the kind of filter (or layers of filters) that we tend to apply when we perceive something. How does a romantic filter color the thing…
