The works of Dostoevsky, Marx and Engels, and Nietzsche serve as a potent contrast between romanticism and realism. In Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground, for example, realism prevails. Here, Dostoevsky contrasts the ridiculous and the nonsensical ideas of humanity at large with the tempering influence of realism. In Part I, Dostoevsky states of the narrator that "He is one of the representatives of a generation still living" (2). The representative and the contemporary are key to realism, as the realist tries to depict what is true about his own generation rather than idealizing about another generation. Dostoevsky's narrator cites the many ideas that are popular in his time and runs them through with the sword of his pen by exposing them to the cold light of realism or by sardonic wit that makes them look ridiculous. He states, for example, "As soon as they prove to you, for instance, that you are descended from a monkey, then it is no use scowling, accept it for a fact" (Dostoevsky 21).
In Karl Marx' and Friedrich Engels' Manifesto of the Communist Party, there is likewise a core of realism. Marx and Engels decry the utopian idealism of the socialists that preceded them, whose ideas center on romantic notions, and insist on hard realism for the present day. Once again, there is a focus on the present rather than on another time, and a clear-headed and realistic perspective that provides matter-of-fact insight into the state of society as a whole. In their discussion of wage-labour, for example, the authors state, "The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer" (Marx & Engels 35).
Nietzsche's The Gay Science, on the other hand, is emblematic of romanticism. In Book Five's "We Fearless Ones," Nietzsche departs from the realism exhibited by the other autho...