Chesnutt and Realism

“Readers will doubtless view the liberation of Chesnutt from a narrow definition of literary realism as this book's most obvious contribution to our understanding of this major American writer. Simmons's close readings of the novels repeatedly reveal the complexity of their characterizations and themes. This study will be appreciated by those interested not only in Chesnutt's personality and art but also in race relations in the U.S. from the 1870s through the 1920s, the emergence of a sophisticated African-American literary tradition at the beginning of the 20th century, and the historical relationship between the prose romance and novel genres in American literature.”
—Joseph R. McElrath, editor of Charles W. Chesnutt: Essays and Speeches
 

“In looking at the relationship between American realism and the work of Charles Chesnutt, Simmons . . . examines the geography of Chesnutt’s life as a metaphor for his personally experienced southern and northern racism and racism attached to a person of mixed race. . . . He concludes that Chesnutt’s point was that race is socially constructed and that, in the world Chesnutt’s characters inhabit, race is significant and blackness is a fact of identity.”
—CHOICE

“Chesnutt and Realism challenges traditional definitions of realism by carefully redefining its terms to circumscribe the many shifts in Chesnutt’s writing career. Further, Simmons emphasizes the neglect of realism as a useful category for Chesnutt scholarship while remaining in conversation with pertinent scholarship on realism and race, including that of Joseph McElrath, Brook Thomas, William L. Andrews, and Kenneth Warren. In doing so he creates a portrait of Charles Chesnutt that reflects his attentiveness to the moral and political power of literature and his commitment to realism in his depiction of race matters in American culture.”
—Studies in American Fiction