This question has fairly broad philosophical implications, but to answer in brief, it is useful to remember that any kind of art is not created in a vacuum; art reflects the time and place in which it is created. Artistic movements (visual, literary, musical) inevitably arise as a rejection of what preceded it. Just as the Romantics rejected the cool rationalism of the Enlightenment to embrace a more mystical, emotional, spiritual, and imaginative perspective that idealized Nature, Realists moved away from these concerns toward a renewed interest in rationalism, along with verisimilitude in depicting the everyday lives of ordinary people. Industrialization, a growing and diversifying population, and the expansion of urban living led writers to create work that explored the enormous social changes as the country began moving away from a heavily agrarian system to a more open and democratic society.
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