SOURCE: "Theory and Opposition (1840-1870)," in French Realism: The Critical Reaction, 1830-1870, Modern Language Association of America, 1937, pp. 117-44.

In the following excerpt, Weinberg reviews the basic tenets of, and the vehement reaction against, French Realism of the mid-nineteenth century.

To state adequately the history of realistic theory, one would have to go back at least as far as the eighteenth century, to the formulations of Diderot. It would then be necessary to trace in romantic credos and manifestoes the development of certain contentions which eventually formed the basis of the realistic gospel. Special attention would need to be paid, for example, to the prefaces and critical pronouncements of Stendhal and Balzac, and to minor novels and novelists of the '20's and '30's. Such a study, however, is beyond the scope of my investigation. In the present [essay] . . . I shall consider the situation only as it...