ABSTRACT
Realism is a critical term only by adoption from philosophy: it comes weakened from loss of blood in earlier battles, and one needs at least to be able to distinguish the opposing sides before one can decide which state is being challenged, and which advanced. Realism as the conscience of literature confesses that it owes a duty, some kind of reparation, to the real world – a real world to which it submits itself unquestioningly. The coherence theory of realism is the consciousness of literature: its self-awareness, its realization of its own ontological status. The novel describes a continuous process of dilation, as Stephen Dedalus is ‘drawn to go forth to encounter reality’; there is always some further realization at hand that will conduct him to that core of consciousness which is the ground of the real.
